Reset Code: Alfheim
by Silius1
Summary: After three long years of fighting to escape the VRMMORPG: Sword Art Online, all of the players have finally left. However, 300 people have been imprisoned in a different VRMMORPG: Alfheim Online. In addition, the vitals of those remaining people are beginning to weaken so time is running out. Will these people escape this VRMMO? Or will they perish? This is Code Alfheim's redo.
1. Author's Notes

Alright, I imagine some of you may be wondering about the ages of my OCs so I'll list it in this chapter. I'll be updating this particular chapter as the series goes on. In addition, I don't want to touch on the matter of birthdays much. I know it'd make the characters more realistic, but I prefer thinking of the matter on a grade/year system. It's barely realistic but I'll be focusing more on years than individual dates. But I'll put up the birthdays nonetheless. I also won't be including minor OCs like Nanak, Morita or the others. I'm questioning whether to include the two companions I have in Shiro, I'll probably include it later on when I get more of Shiro written.

Karen Koizumi - When she first enters Sword Art Online, she's 13. When she enters Alfheim the first time, she's 16. She's 17 at the time of Ragnarok. Birthday: February 19th

Katsuo Viperia - Same as Karen. Birthday: June 17th

Kana Shimuzu - Same as above. Birthday June 12th

Hikaru Murai - Same as Karen, Katsuo, and Kana. Given Birthday: March 19th

Sylvia Miyagawa - Sylvia is 12 when she first plays SAO. When she enters Alfheim the first time, she's 15. She's 16 at the time of Ragnarok. Birthday: May 8th.

Haruka Uchimaya - Same as Sylvia. Birthday: April 5th

Mamoru Nakasone - Mamoru is 18 when he first plays SAO and 21 when he enters Alfheim. 22 at the time of Ragnarok. Birthday: November 15th


	2. Chapter 1: A New Beginning

_Disclaimer: I don't own anything apart from the words that I write and the characters that I create. Credit goes to the original creator of the SAO universe; credits also to the creators and contributors to the Code Lyoko series and related works._

* * *

Aincrad Standard Time: [18:30] June 1st, 2025

Location: [Floor 98: Iwaya]

The game of SAO was cleared after nearly 3 years of fighting in Aincrad. Everyone cheered and enjoyed their last day in Aincrad, however the hidden truth behind one of the stronger clearers kept him and his friends from truly enjoying it. The clearer known as Hikaru Murai or Ulrich Stern and his friends have gone to the newest house owned by the entirety of the Senryaku unit in Iwaya on floor 98, which is the size of a giant mansion and the only reason Hikaru has it is because everyone in the Senryaku unit pooled their money together and became co-owners because of its immense price of nearly 100 million Col, to enjoy their final days in Aincrad. The people who have assembled in Hikaru's mansion are: Hikaru, Sylvia, Karen, Katsuo, Kana, Kazuto, Asuna, Tsuboi (Klein), Keiko, Rika, Haruka, Mamoru, and Yui.

"I-I can't believe it, after three years, Aincrad has been cleared and we can all leave" Kazuto says, doubting himself somewhat out of the happiness of freedom after three years.

"Not all of us Kirito-kun." Asuna says sadly, glancing at Hikaru, knowing that he exists in Aincrad, body and soul, unlike everyone else who is here only in their minds figuratively.

"Oh, I'm sorry Hikaru, I forgot." Kazuto says in a sad tone, having forgotten his unique circumstances.

"It's alright, atleast you all can leave, your friends and families must be worried sick, the sooner you all can return, the better." Hikaru says, trying to sound happy over how his friends can reunite with their friends and families.

"Hikaru, you're part of our family too, even though we'd return to our own world, you'd be left behind" Karen says sadly.

"Karen's right Hikaru, you're part of our extended family, it's never good being forced to leave family behind." Keiko says, with Sylvia, Haruka, and Rika nodding in agreement.

"They're right about all this. After all this time we spent together in Aincrad, I consider you, Kazuto, Tsuboi, and Mamoru as my brothers. I also think of Keiko and the other girls as my sisters." Katsuo says proudly.

"Yeah Hikaru, never assume you're alone, you're part of our family, even if we're not blood related." Tsuboi says with his usual attitude, giving a thumbs up during his speech.

"You guys...you're so silly." Hikaru says desperately trying to hold back his tears.

* * *

Everyone in the group begins laughing trying to ease the tense situation, which succeeds rather easily. When things calm down between the group, Hikaru decides to ask a question of his friends since they'll be leaving him relatively soon and he might not be able to see them again. He at least wants to know their plans for the future after this.

"Anyway, what are you all going to after this?" Hikaru asks the group.

"I'll have a lot of education to catch up on, I'm sure being stuck here for 3 years really reduced my actual intelligence." Karen says casually, being a bit depressed near the end, remembering that three years passed in real life and a lot of things could've easily happened outside Aincrad.

"I'll need to talk with my sister and mother, they're surely both worried sick and mad at me." Kazuto says with mixed tones, praying things will end civil between himself, his sister, and his mother.

"I don't know actually, SAO was my purpose for the last three years. I don't know what I'll do after I'm done here, I'm definitely going to keep playing MMORPGs though, it's very fun." Katsuo says, having enjoyed 'playing' this MMO and wants to play more of them.

"I do miss my younger brother and sister, I've been raising him with help with my sister after my parents passed away. I hope the both of them are doing fine. I never anticipated that I'd be stuck here for three years. Originally, this was just going to be a fun activity to pass time, but not THIS much time." Sylvia says, with a hint of guilt, remembering her family on the other side.

The rest of the group answer in similar ways, with Hikaru being made mildly jealous with each response because of how he's trapped in this virtual reality world.

"Hikaru, why did you ask us this? Is there a reason?" Karen asks out of curiosity.

"I wanted to know, it helps me relax a little knowing what you're going to do with this time of conflict ending." Hikaru says calmly.

"I see, I suppose knowing the plans of your friends can bring one a little stability." Mamoru interjects calmly, knowing the logic behind his intent.

"I want a way to meet up with you all in the real world actually, is there a place all of us can meet up in?" Kana says with a little optimism and sadness.

"Doesn't Andrew run a bar in real life? We could meet up there." Asuna mentions calmly, hoping that things work out in this manner.

"Hikaru, I may know a way you can attend as well. Considering how you entered Aincrad through unorthodox methods, I imagine Cardinal would've digitized you. If I can find an admin console, I think could turn your existence into an item and transfer you to my NerveGear, in a way, you'd become a pseudo Artificial Intelligence." Kazuto says, praying that this works as he thinks.

"That sounds depressing, I'm not sure how much I'd like that." Hikaru says in an obviously depressed tone.

"Don't take it that way Hikaru, your mind and body would still stay here, but you'd have access to us digitally, we'd be able to meet in the real world." Kazuto says, trying to cheer up Hikaru.

"If you put it that way, it does sound a little better." Hikaru says sheepishly.

"I imagine you all must be hungry; Asuna, Kana, Haruka, would you all mind helping me with cooking up a feast?" Karen asks, since these four are the best chefs in this group of friends.

"Certainly, Kirito-kun, keep out of trouble." Asuna says seriously, with Kana and Haruka nodding in approval for cooking the feast and leaving to the kitchen, leaving Hikaru, Kirito, Katsuo, Sylvia, Klein, Rika, Keiko, and Yui.

"I don't plan on waiting here until the food's ready. Hikaru, you said this place has a forge right?" Rika asks.

"Yeah, it's a floor above us, far right." Hikaru says relatively nonchalantly, knowing Rika's favoritism of forging.

Rika departs to the forge, not wanting to be stuck in a room full of guys, aside from Sylvia, Keiko, and Yui.

"I'm going to head to the library; Keiko, Yui, Mamoru, do you three want to come with me?" Sylvia says, wanting to read up on various topics.

"Fine by me. Normally I'd be drinking a little, but what the heck." Mamoru says in a light hearted manner.

"Certainly, bye bye Papa." Yui says while running towards Kazuto and giving him a quick hug, then departs with Sylvia, Keiko, and Mamoru to the library.

"This leaves you, Katsuo, Klein, and myself; Hey, do you all want to spar in the ring? It has a unique ability of creating any environment." Hikaru asks what's left of the group.

"Normally, I'd say yes, but I'll pass. Have fun." Klein shrugs, laying back against a couch.

"Are you sure? What about the rule of death?" Kazuto asks in mild shock.

"Remember when Kayaba told us that he disabled the rule of death?. How do you think we've survived since XANA showed up?" Hikaru says, surprised that Kazuto forgot this common information.

"Count me in, I've been crazy bored since we beat Heathcliff." Katsuo says with fire in his tone, wanting to get one fight in between this group to see who would be the victor.

"Very well...what setting will we use? Total loss? Half Loss? First Strike?" Kazuto asks.

"First strike is unfair because of the fact you and Hikaru are much faster than us." Katsuo says, knowing that he's not as fast as Kazuto and Hikaru.

"Let's do Half loss, it'll allow us to go all out and avoid dying in battle." Kazuto says, hoping to make a compromise with the group.

"Fair enough, let's head to the ring, I have a special environment in mind." Hikaru says with giddiness in his tone, while heading to the ring with Kazuto and Katsuo.

* * *

The group wander through the large hallways of Senryaku's mansion to reach the dueling ring near the top of the mansion to start the duel between Hikaru, Katsuo, and Kazuto. They arrive at the ring and when they enter, a special field is created and the environment changes to a giant ice mountain field, that is reminiscent of floor 58's mountains. The four challengers are in random parts of the environment, thus it's become a sort of race to take down the others and come out victorious.

"Hmm; a mountainous terrain, I'm glad I have this pure white shield, I can hide myself near the snow and pick them off one by one, but if this place is giant-sized, the match would never end. As much as I would want to stay alive, I'm not going to use stealth and fight them face to face. You are so going down Hikaru." Katsuo says quietly, not trying to alert the others if they're close by, and trying to avoid causing an avalanche.

Katsuo then decides to draw his dual blades and runs north to try catching at least one of the others.

"This environment reminds me of floor 58, I remember that my Dark Repulser was made by Rika from a crystalline ingot I got from that dragon." Kazuto says quietly, wondering how to make this environment work for him.

Kazuto decides to head towards the mountainside to get an aerial view of the area and find the others.

"Looks like things are going well, I bet that Kazuto and Katsuo are dumbfounded and I can use that chance to get a drop on the others...but who should I go after first? Kazuto is very skilled with dual blades so he'll be trouble, but Katsuo is incredibly resilient so if I go after him, I'll be too weak to fight Kazuto. But I'll have the same problems vice-versa." Hikaru is pondering who to go after first.

* * *

Hikaru departs to get a drop on either Kazuto or Katsuo, as Kazuto is known as the Black Swordsman and Katsuo's known as the adaptable White Fortress. When Heathcliff was defeated, they were the most powerful of all the clearers, with Hikaru tying for first alongside Kazuto and Katsuo because of his increased strength but with his capability to become exhausted making him relatively fragile. Sylvia herself is widely considered by the clearers strong enough to take down any of these three but Sylvia has never desired to fight against the trio so they'll never know if this is true or not.

Hikaru and Katsuo are dashing through the mountainous terrain trying to find their opponents, with Kazuto taking the different approach of climbing the mountainside to find the others. Hikaru quickly sees the silhouette of one of the challengers and uses his super-sprint skill to quickly sneak up on the person. To his surprise, the silhouette is Kazuto's.

"Excellent, my most difficult opponent is here unaware of my presence, Katsuo is not as strong as Kazuto generally, so removing Kirito from the duel will be a definite plus." Hikaru says to himself, using a special version of the dual blades unique skill that he received from Cardinal when Kayaba reprogrammed it and draws his Kingetsuga & Kurogetsuga, the one katana that Rika made with the unique quality of changing color & name separated into three different katanas upon the acquisition of the dual blades skill, and creeps behind Kazuto to begin the attack.

Right when Hikaru would begin the attack, Kazuto draws his Elucidator and Dark Repulser and blocks the attack

"Did you honestly think you'd be able to eliminate me that easily Hikaru?" Kazuto says with pride, trying to hide how he's having a degree of trouble keeping Hikaru back.

"Not really, but I figured I'd eliminate you here and now and deal with Katsuo later." Hikaru says with the same amount of pride.

"Then let me fight you with everything I've got Hikaru, I will not lose to you." Kazuto says proudly.

"Same to you, we both use dual weaponry, so we'll need to see who comes out victorious amongst us." Hikaru says, before beginning the clash.

* * *

Hikaru and Kazuto fight with their dual bladed weaponry for over 15 minutes and neither side seems to hold an advantage. They are beginning to make mistakes because of exhaustion, which Katsuo takes advantage of, because he was taking cover out of sight during their fight, wanting to fight the two in a weakened state because of how tough it'd be to fight them at full strength.

"This is my perfect chance to defeat you both, prepare to be defeated!" Katsuo exclaims, before rushing to attack them.

Kazuto and Hikaru break away from their fight to keep Katsuo from taking victory because of how they're both rather weak. Right when they were going to inflict their final attacks, a voice is heard from outside the ring

"Kirito-kun, everyone, get out of that arena! We finished cooking ten minutes ago and we've been trying to find you!" Asuna says very angrily.

"Uh-oh, Asuna is very scary when she's mad...we ought to leave now and try to keep that anger minimal." Kazuto gulps in a very scared tone, having seen Asuna's anger more than once.

"Agreed." Hikaru and Katsuo say in the same scared tone, knowing how Asuna gets when she's mad.

* * *

They exit the arena to find Asuna, Kana, and Karen in the room, looking very annoyed. Hikaru and the others get shivers down their spines upon seeing those angry faces, they then head down to the dining hall to eat the meal that was prepared.

After they finish eating, they start up new conversation that last a few hours. They all notice it's gotten relatively late, with Kazuto, Asuna, Yui, Haruka, Mamoru, and Tsuboi departing to their own homes to sleep one last time in Aincrad before leaving Aincrad tomorrow, as they are among the last few hundred people departing this game. Sylvia, Karen, Katsuo, and Kana reside in the estate with Hikaru as these four are the closest friends Hikaru has in the entire world of Aincrad.

"I guess this is our last full day in Aincrad, we've agreed to all log out tomorrow at noon." Katsuo says with relative sadness.

"Well, if what Kazuto said is true, I've become integrated with Cardinal's code, so I should be able to be with you outside of Aincrad to a limited extent." Hikaru says.

"I thought that thought made you depressed Hikaru?" Karen asks, wondering why Hikaru suddenly seems interested to do this.

"Knowing that you all are leaving kind of pushes me to do extreme things to make sure we all stay together." Hikaru says with a little doubt in his tone.

"We'll definitely have to meet up with Kazuto and Yui, I'm pretty sure that Heathcliff told Kazuto the admin code to this game when he spoke with him privately, so we can use it to properly digitize you Hikaru." Karen says.

"Guys, let's continue this discussion tomorrow, we need rest." Katsuo says.

The group nods in approval and head out to their bedrooms to sleep for the night. The next morning, there's a light knock on Hikaru's door that he wouldn't even hear without his strong natural listening skill.

* * *

Aincrad Standard Time: [8:00] June 2nd, 2025

"Who is it?" Hikaru asks half asleep, wearing a new sleeping outfit he purchased on floor 80: a robe colored gold and brown.

"It's me, Karen, Katsuo and the others left already, we're meeting in Floor One's hidden dungeon, underneath the Black Iron Castle. Would you mind if I came in?" Karen asks softly.

"Uh sure, come on in." Hikaru says.

Karen enters the room wearing a robe herself, the design is similar to Hikaru's, but the colors are different with a purple color with red trims.

"Karen, when did you start wearing that?" Hikaru asks in utter shock.

"Keiko made it for me a few days ago, I like the colors of this outfit believe it or not. Anyway...do you like it?" Karen says in a casual tone, hiding a mild blush.

"Y-Yeah...it's nice." Hikaru says nervously, he's trying to avoid making her mad.

"I see." Karen says trying to hide her blush.

"Well; I suppose we should go, we don't want to keep the others waiting." Hikaru says.

"Right, let's go." Karen says with a nod.

Karen and Hikaru depart to floor 1's City of Beginning and walk to the Black Iron Castle where they find Katsuo, Sylvia, Kana, Mamoru, Haruka, Kazuto, Asuna, and Yui outside the dungeon entrance, with all of the people wearing their newest armors, aside from Yui who's wearing the same white dress.

* * *

Aincrad Standard Time: [10:00] June 2nd, 2025

"Good, everyone's here. We can go to the admin console that exists in this dungeon to solve this problem of yours Hikaru." Kazuto says, beckoning everyone to follow his lead.

The group journey through the abandoned dungeon to find the safe room and reactivate the admin console to begin digitizing Hikaru's code to Kazuto's NerveGear.

"Wow, this dungeon was among one of the most dangerous in Aincrad and now it's outright empty." Hikaru says in mild shock.

"Yeah, all monsters and NPCs were deactivated to prepare for the dismantling of Sword Art Online two hours from now." Kazuto says calmly. "I'm going to begin the procedure, are you ready Hikaru?" Kazuto asks.

"Yeah, I presume I'll be asleep while I'm in your NerveGear, so I'll see you all when I'm summoned." Hikaru says.

Kazuto starts the procedure to begin the digitization of Hikaru's character data to his NerveGear, so he'll be reborn as an Artificial Intelligence like Yui. Things appear to be going smoothly until problems begin occurring

"Kazuto...I feel odd...is this supposed to happen?" Hikaru asks in confusion.

"What sensation do you have?" Kazuto asks, trying to figure out the specifics.

"It feels like a...transporting sensation." Hikaru says, with this sensation overriding his senses.

"Transporting… That's not supposed to happen!" Kazuto exclaims in a panicked tone, working the controls to figure out what's happening.

Hikaru quickly begins to dissipate pixel by pixel, first starting with his legs

"Wha-What's happening?!" Hikaru asks in shock, with his body still disappearing.

"I-I don't know!" Kazuto says freaking out, trying to figure out what's happening and the group all gasp in horror at what they're seeing.

The dissipation continues rapidly with only Hikaru's arms and everything above the upper torso remaining

"Hikaru, just stay calm! if I'm right, you're just being transferred to a different version of Cardinal, what that means is that you'll be sent to another VRMMORPG. When we log out, we will do our best to find you." Kazuto says trying to calm himself and Hikaru down.

The devirtualization is at the phase where Hikaru's head is left, who is smiling lightly and nods before he vanishes.

"What? Where'd he go?!" Karen shouts in surprise.

"I don't know Karen. But don't worry, we'll find him." Katsuo says, trying to calm down Karen.

"Come on, let's get out of Aincrad, return to reality and we'll search for Hikaru then." Sylvia says in a calm tone, with her and the others logging out of Sword Art Online with them hoping to find Hikaru soon.

* * *

Unfortunately, things will not be going so smoothly for this group of players as they will not be returning to reality as soon as they hope.


	3. Chapter 2: Kazuto's Arrival

_Disclaimer: I don't own anything apart from the words that I write and the characters that I create. Credit goes to the original creator of the SAO universe; credits also to the creators and contributors to the Code Lyoko series and related works._

Author Notes: If you want to understand this story fully, I would highly recommend reading my previous work: Reset Code Aincrad.

Please read and review since I'm not working with a beta this time around and until I get something back to the ones I asked, I probably won't be using one.

* * *

Real Life Standard Time: [13:00] July 31th, 2025

It's been around two months since the trapped players escaped Sword Art Online, but there's still around three hundred people trapped in virtual reality. Kazuto was lucky enough to make it back to reality, but the three hundred people were not so lucky as they're still comatose in the hospital, with their minds still trapped somewhere in the virtual world. Not long after he finished his physical rehabilitation, Andrew asked Kazuto to stop by his place of business: the Dicey Cafe as he claims that he has something he'd want to see, immediately. When Kazuto enters the Cafe, Andrew beckons him to sit down at one of the bar stools, which he does straightaway.

"Andrew, do you know how Asuna and the others are faring?" Kazuto asks in concern, as he hasn't been able to visit the others but he knew that they were still trapped when he escaped Aincrad.

"They're…they're not doing well. Their vitals are beginning to drop and the doctors are reaching their limits. It's been three years and they've been dependent on life support which is beginning to fail." Andrew admits sadly, not wanting to have told Kazuto this so bluntly, but there wasn't much choice, since this is the truth and it is a big problem for those remaining three hundred.

"Y-You must be kidding! Asuna, Karen, Katsuo, Sylvia, and so many others are still stuck somewhere! Are you telling me...telling me that...if they aren't freed soon...?" Kazuto asks in a panic, not wanting any of his friends from Aincrad to die in this way.

"The doctors are doing everything they can, but they aren't miracle workers. The people have been comatose three years from Sword Art Online dependent on life support, and at the most, they have one more month before their vitals fail entirely." Andrew calmly tries to explain the situation and try calming down the panicking Kazuto "The minds of the three hundred players need to be made active for them to survive past this month. Anyway, speaking of Asuna, that's partly while I called for you. Here." Andrew continues with a frown, lightly passing a game case across the bar table, with Kazuto quickly catching it.

"Alfheim? What is this Andrew?" Kazuto asks, glancing at the case's front and back.

"It's another Virtual Reality MMO. From what I know, it's like Sword Art Online with no sword skills and magic. Anyway, there's a reason why I'm showing you this." Andrew states calmly, before pulling him a picture from his shirt pocket and showing it to Kazuto.

Kazuto looks at the picture for a moment and gasps when he recognizes the person in the picture: Asuna Yuuki, Kazuto's wife in the game Sword Art Online.

"W-Where did you get this Andrew?" Kazuto demands, trying to keep a calm disposition.

"Some players in Alfheim took this picture." Andrew then lightly flips the game case to its back and points to a tree in the middle "It was taken here, at a place called: The World Tree."

"If Asuna is there in Alfheim…" Kazuto mumbles quietly, perhaps realizing what's going on.

"There's no definite proof, but Asuna is still trapped in Virtual Reality and if she's there in Alfheim, it's very likely that the rest of the Aincrad players are there."

"Well then; I should get to work on finding everyone. You mind if I take this?"

"Go ahead. If it helps free everyone, you have my blessings. Go free everyone then we can have a proper reunion in reality. Best of luck." Andrew says with a smile, exchanging a friendly fist bump with Kazuto before he leaves the cafe.

"I'd better get to work. I only have a month before Asuna and the others...no, I _won't_ let that happen. I _will_ free everyone that's still trapped. Asuna...everyone, I'm coming to save you. But…this may actually be too big a job for myself alone. Just about everyone I would ask is still trapped in virtual reality…wait, Tsuboi and Rika made it out, maybe I could ask for their help."

* * *

Real Life Standard Time: [15:00] July 31th, 2025

Kazuto contacted Tsuboi and Rika, asking them to meet at a small park not far from his house, with Tsuboi being the last one to show up

"Good to see you in reality Kazuto." Tsuboi replies with a friendly salute as he walks into the park, seeing the black haired Kazuto Kirigaya and the brunette: Rika Shinozaki.

"Likewise Tsuboi, Rika. Anyway, I came to ask for your help with something." Kazuto replies with a brief smile, before getting straight to the point.

"Why do you need our help 'Black Swordsman'?" Rika teasingly asks, wondering why this powerful Aincrad player needs help.

"Rika, I'm asking for your help to help everyone stuck in the virtual world: Karen, Katsuo, Sylvia, Keiko, everyone. It's too much for me alone." Kazuto says, trying to get his point across rather seriously.

Rika's joking attitude fades as Kazuto explains himself and she plays with her fingers a little, trying to think of something to say "I see. Well, you make a convincing argument, but what exactly do you want us to do?"

"I want you two to join Alfheim Online with me and help me find the others." Kazuto bluntly says, telling them his plan.

"Sorry Kazuto but I can't help you this time." Tsuboi frowns as he tells Kazuto that he can't join in this time.

"Count me in, but the thing is, I'm going to do this solo." Rika lets out a small laugh as she talks.

"Why?" Kazuto is left shocked at how Rika wants to help but wants to do it alone.

"We'll be able to cover more ground separately. I actually created an account in Alfheim about a week ago as a Leprechaun character. I'll cover the northern territories: Puca, Leprechaun, Gnome, and Spriggan, and you can cover the southern territories: Cait Sith, Sylph, Salamander, and Imp."

"Okay, but where do we meet? We don't have that much time available and we need to work fast."

"I crossed over my Aincrad avatar which means that I'm as strong as I was in that MMO and all my money crossed over. I used that money to buy a house in a neutral city in Cait Sith territory. Gather as many people from Aincrad as you can and bring them there. I'll do the same."

"Will do. Best of luck." Kazuto smiles a little as he walks away, before glancing toward Rika "We have a time limit of a month. We need to find whatever's keeping the others trapped and free them."

"Oh please, after what we've been through in Aincrad the last three years, this'll be a piece of cake." Rika laughs off the caution from Kazuto before calming down a little "Let's bring our friends back home, where they should be." Rika says with a serious smile, walking past Kazuto and heads home to get back in Alfheim.

"Right. Let's do this Rika. Best of luck Tsuboi, if you change your mind, I'd appreciate it." Kazuto sincerely says to the red haired man who he met the day the ten thousand players were imprisoned in Aincrad.

"Will do. I may reconsider this but right now, I'm not sure I can join in." Tsuboi nods in response to Kazuto's statement.


	4. Interlude: Shout Out

This is a really random entry I know, but I feel like I need to give a shout out to a fellow fanfiction writer. If you're reading this, I am very thankful to Empty265.

If you're wondering why I'm giving this shout-out, it's for this reason: While I came up with this concept for the series myself, Empty helped inspire me to actually post this series and helped me come up with a small problem I had prior to me setting it up. Empty's sword art online crossover story: Nanoha x Sword Art Online: Concerto of Blades helped me come up with a solution on how to deal with the matter of Ulrich's unique skills from Lyoko. I don't know what exactly happened to make him/her delete the story and any others he/she may have had, but Empty...I owe you for helping me work up the desire to post this series.


	5. Chapter 3: Reunification Commence

Hikaru has vanished from his friends in the world of Aincrad and appeared in another VRMMORPG, will he be able to reunite with his friends?

_Disclaimer: I don't own anything apart from the words that I write and the characters that I create. Credit goes to the original creator of the SAO universe; credits also to the creators and contributors to the Code Lyoko series and related works._

Author Notes: If you want to understand this story fully, I would highly recommend reading my previous work: Code Aincrad. Also, while the first half is the same as the original story granted, but after the halfway mark, things REALLY change from the original. A few themes will stay the same, but this story will be drastically different from before.

Lastly, please read and review.

* * *

Alfheim Standard Time: [10:30] August 1st, 2025

Hikaru suddenly vanished from the world of Aincrad because of a mistake in the conversion process to another VRMMORPG according to his friend: Kazuto. After two months of slow reconstruction and transferring in Cardinal's archives, Hikaru materializes in the sky roughly two hundred feet above a forest and rapidly begins to fall.

Ah damn damn damn! There's no way I'm going to survive this!" Hikaru shouts fearfully as he sees himself rapidly falling to the ground.

Hikaru is still quickly falling and will hit the ground in less than 20 seconds.

"If someone's there, please help me!" Hikaru shouts during the fall.

Right when Hikaru would've crashed to the ground, he gets saved by another player who appears to have wings on her back with the pair then landing down to the ground slowly with the process being rather calm and serene.

"Are you okay, whoever you are?" The player asks worriedly. Hikaru quickly notices that it's a female player clothed in green and white with long blonde hair.

"I am now, I'm glad you saved me..." Hikaru says out of gratitude, but slows down when he would address the person.

"My name is Leafa, what's yours?" Leafa asks in a polite manner, extending her right hand to Hikaru.

"I'm Ul-" Hikaru cut off, thinking he should use a different identity for the time being considering the lessons he learned back in Aincrad, with Leafa tilting her head in confusion. "I-I'm Ulkaios, I'm pleased to meet you Leafa." Hikaru says with a mild, near invisible stutter in his tone, trying to improvise on a name for himself, accepting the handshake. He is unaware of how this altered his avatar name from his real name to this makeshift disguise of Ulkaios.

"Same to you Ulkaios, are you new to Alfheim Online?" Leafa asks in a polite manner.

"_So this must be another VRMMORPG, just like Kazuto said._" Hikaru says to himself "Yeah, I'm new to Alfheim Online, but when I created this character, I spawned in mid-air about to crash, but you saved me from that fate." Hikaru says, looking sheepish.

"I see. It's actually rare for that to happen to players starting out, anyway, it's only right for me to help a fellow Sylph." Leafa says with a smile toward Hikaru.

"_So...I'm a Sylph in this world?_" Hikaru asks himself, trying to figure out what in the world's going on and glances around the forest he's in.

"Look, I don't want to rush you, but we really shouldn't stay here, the Salamanders tend to frequent this area. I actually saved a Spriggan in this area named Kirito yesterday. He's been staying with me for a little while." Leafa says.

"_Kirito?! Is it a coincidence? Is Kazuto in this world?_" Hikaru asks himself in shock. "Leafa...you said you saved a player named Kirito? Could you bring me to where he last was?" Hikaru says in a relatively pushy tone, wanting to make sure that this Kirito is the same person he knew from Aincrad.

"Uh...sure, I dropped him off in Sylvain, it's about a thirty minute flight from here." Leafa trailed off, looking mildly confused about why Hikaru wants to see this Kirito.

"Flight? What are you talking about Leafa?" Hikaru asks, utterly confused about the idea of anyone being able to fly.

"Oh yeah, you're new to this game. Essentially, there's a flight engine in this game that allows the players to fly, though it's not unlimited." Leafa explains, with a small shrug of her shoulders. "It'll take too long if we walk from here to Sylvain, we need to fly if we want to reach it quickly. Here, let me teach you how to use the flight engine." Leafa continues while walking around to Hikaru's back.

"Wh-what are you doing Leafa?" Hikaru asks slightly in fear as he sees Leafa walking to his back.

"Just calm down." Leafa tries to soothe him while walking to Hikaru's back, puts her hand on his back and applies some force.

"H-Hey! What gives?!" Hikaru says freaked out when Leafa started touching his back.

"Relax, what I'm doing is a good lesson for new players, anyway, try to imagine bones and muscle spreading out around here and try to move them." Leafa spoke in a surprisingly compassionate tone, also a tone of an instructor.

"_This reminds me of when Yui helped me back in Aincrad._" Hikaru says to himself, noting Leafa's desire to help him. "Uh, alright." Hikaru mutters a little awkwardly, focusing on what Leafa told him about.

Hikaru summons his dark green wings, following Leafa's instructions and manages to get them fully spread out and instinctively flies afterwards, with Leafa nearby, also in flight.

"You're pretty smart, far smarter than that Kirito, he couldn't even do this on his first try. It took me ten minutes to get him to do this. You've impressed me Ulkaios." She laughed as she recalled Kirito's spiraling flight as she flies up to Hikaru.

* * *

Alfheim Standard Time: [11:00] August 1st, 2025

The pair flies to Sylvain, the Sylph capital and stop by the inn where Leafa dropped off Kirito. They arrive at the inn to find a player dressed in all black sitting on a small stool at a table.

"_Is that...Kazuto?_" Hikaru asks himself, trying to read the aura of the player whose signature clearly is black.

"Hello Kirito-kun, I see you've logged back in." Leafa says with a friendly tone to the Spriggan player.

"Ah, Leafa, good to see you, who's your friend?" Kirito asks and after Hikaru heard his voice, he quietly gasped, recognizing Kazuto's voice.

"This is Ulkaios, he's a new player of Alfheim Online. I saved him in the same general area we met yesterday."

"I'm pleased to meet you Ulkaios." Kazuto says, apparently not realizing that Hikaru is Ulkaios, since Hikaru noticed that his appearance is nearly identical from Aincrad aside from all of the green color and the new outfit.

Hikaru can't stand the thought of Kazuto being unaware of the fact his friend is literally in the same room, so he decides to take steps to prevent this from getting out of hand.

"Leafa, do you think I can talk to Kirito alone for a minute?" Hikaru requested with a mildly solemn tone.

"Sure, I'll wait outside for you both." Leafa says before departing the inn.

Hikaru looks around to see if there's any other players around before he reveals his identity as Ulrich Stern, or Hikaru Murai as most people called him.

"What did you need to talk to me about Ulkaios?" Kazuto asks.

"Kazuto, it's me! Hikaru! You know, from Aincrad!" Hikaru hissed just above the level of a general conversation, but not quite shouting.

"Wait...Hikaru?! What are you doing here in Alfheim? I saw you vanish in Aincrad nearly two months ago!" Kazuto exclaimed, clearly shocked since he saw Hikaru vanish back in Aincrad. Kazuto and the others had no idea what truly happened to him after that event. "_Has he been here in Alfheim since the teleport?_" Kazuto asks himself curiously.

"It's been two months? Wow, so I've lost two months' worth of time… Anyway, what happened to Karen and the others?" Hikaru asks, with his mood dropping a little as he hears that he's lost two months of time, and wonders what's happened to his friends during the two months.

"We haven't had a chance to meet up yet, I've been undergoing physical therapy since I left Aincrad. However a good number of SAO players haven't returned to reality actually." Kazuto informed him quietly. "_Okay, he definitely hasn't been here long if he said that. But...geez, I cannot understand why he is unaware two months have passed. Why does he not know this?!_" Kazuto continues in his mind, with his confusion about Hikaru only rising.

"Who hasn't returned?" Hikaru asks, feeling concerned for his friends from Sword Art Online.

"About three hundred people, including Asuna, Karen, Kana, Katsuo, Sylvia, Haruka, and Mamoru, have not returned to reality. Agil showed me a picture of Asuna being in this game. If Asuna's here, I suspect the others are here as well." Kazuto says, revealing his suspicions.

"Have they been able to get together to try figuring out what happened?"

"I have no idea, I just started playing this MMO yesterday after I heard Asuna was here."

"I see, we should get going, before Leafa gets mad at us, anyway for now, do you think you could call me Ulkaios? I'll call you Kirito in public."

"Certainly...Ulkaios..." Kazuto muttered with a little difficulty, finding it uneasy to call one of his close friends by this new name.

Kazuto and Hikaru then leave the inn to find Leafa waiting for them.

"Kirito-kun, you said you wanted me to bring you to Aarun?" Leafa asks.

"Yeah, I have a friend near there, I need to get there." Kazuto says quietly, with his thoughts being near singular about Asuna and the others now.

"I actually have friends of my own in this game, I want to try finding them if possible." Hikaru points out, wanting to find out what happened to the Senryaku unit and the Aincrad players in his two month absence.

"Do you know what their names are? Or what race they're in?" Leafa asked.

"Not particularly." Hikaru trailed off sadly, with his lack of knowledge being a huge hindrance here.

"That's going to make things difficult, I think there are at least 500,000 players in this game minimal." Leafa says with a small sigh, trying not to shatter Hikaru's hope. "Come on, let's go. We need to get you all some weapons for the upcoming treks."

* * *

The trio then depart to the markets since Kazuto has asked to buy new weaponry, and Hikaru is hoping to check out their inventory of katanas. Kazuto buys a large 'Black Iron Great Sword', while Hikaru buys a katana with the name: Arondite. Hikaru bought this new katana since he doesn't have any of the items or equipment from Aincrad since he got a system notice about how his inventory was utterly scrapped while he was falling to the ground; but he does have around 800,000 Yuld, which he guesses may have been converted from all of the Col that he had in Aincrad.

Around this moment, a female player nearby dressed in primarily purple and red, who looks rather similar to Karen, walks by the stall, which Kazuto and Hikaru notice right away. She slows down slightly when she arrives near the weapon stall, apparently looking for wares herself

"_Damn it Okamoto… I was counting on you to help me out here! And you tell me 'I'm going to Lugru, find me there later.' You are…geez._" The girl mumbles under her breath rather angrily.

"Excuse me, have we met before?" Hikaru asks the girl, wondering if this girl merely looks like Karen or is actually her.

"Hm? Are you speaking to me?" The girl asks absentmindedly not really paying attention to the person talking, until she realizes that he is indeed talking to her. "Oh, I'm sorry, I've been a little pre-occupied, I'm trying to find some friends of mine scattered all over. Though, I have no idea if they're even here or not." The girl says, still not quite paying full attention to the player talking to her.

"I see." Hikaru says calmly, still glancing at the girl.

"I'm also looking for a...very good friend of mine as well, but I have my doubts he's in this world to be honest." she trailed off, blushing slightly.

"Really, what are their game names? If you don't know the ones here in this world, what about the ones you remember?" Hikaru asks calmly, in a tone suggesting that he seemingly knows this person now.

"Normally, I'd be hesitant to say, but with game names, I'm looking for players who went by Masaru, Amaterasu, Elena, Mikuya, Pulse, and a few others." The girl trailed off, her blush having faded while she had been talking.

Kazuto muffled his gasp as he recognizes the voice of this character now, alongside the fact she knew Katsuo, Kana, Sylvia, Haruka, and Mamoru. This girl really is Solaris, or as she was commonly called by her close friends: Karen. Leafa then walks toward Hikaru.

"What's wrong with you guys? Is it that rare talking to someone from the Imp race?" Leafa asks with a mild sigh at the bewildered expressions from Hikaru and Kazuto. "Ulkaios, I'll trust you to keep Kirito-kun safe; bring him to the tower when you finish this conversation." Leafa leaves the area to get to the tower.

"Wait...Kirito...?" The girl sounded utterly surprised when Leafa said the name: Kirito.

"I'm glad to see you again, Karen Koizumi." Hikaru whispered loud enough for her to hear him.

The girl gasps in surprise. Understandable considering how someone knew her real name.

"How-How do you know my name?" Karen tries to talk calmly, in an attempt to disguise her fear.

"My name is Ulkaios in this world, but you know me as Hikaru Murai." Hikaru states rather proudly.

Karen gasps even louder, she presumed Hikaru was no longer even alive after the incident in Aincrad.

"Hikaru...? Is that really you?" Karen was not able to believe herself in the slightest, subconsciously hugging Hikaru.

"It's me alright, I'm glad I got to see you again Karen." Hikaru says with a tear in his eye, hugging Karen back.

"If you wouldn't mind, I'd prefer going by our in game names, that is, until we find the others." Karen says seriously, letting go of the hug before saying this.

"Okay then, my in game name is Ulkaios, Kazuto is still using the name Kirito, and what's yours?"

"I named this character Ashikaga, which overwrote my old name of Solaris." Karen says.

"Alright, Ulkaios, Ashikaga, we should get going, before Leafa gets angry at us." Kazuto says seriously.

"Right, let's get going." Karen says with a quick nod.

* * *

Hikaru, Karen, and Kazuto depart to the tower where Leafa is waiting for them. While the trio is walking towards the tower, they get a lot of negative stares from other Sylph players.

"_Kirito, can you think of a reason why these Sylphs seem to hate us?_" Karen whispers to the Spriggan.

"_No clue, though Leafa did mention that I wouldn't be welcome here much, maybe they don't like other races here._" Kazuto whispers back.

"_It could be why Leafa told me to keep you safe. Perhaps they tolerate you guys since I'm walking with you guys._" Hikaru interjected quietly, trying to avoid having the other Sylphs hear his statement.

"_Right. You are a Sylph so I imagine they wouldn't attack anyone traveling with one of their own. We'd better stay close to you Hikaru, we don't want to cause needless complications._" Karen nods, seeing the logic in what Hikaru said there.

They arrive at the tower after ten minutes of walking, with Karen being the guide, which is embarrassing slightly for Hikaru since he was supposed to be the one guiding them as he was a Sylph. They then enter the tower to find Leafa arguing with a small group of Sylphs.

* * *

Alfheim Standard Time: [13:00] August 1st, 2025

"Leafa, do you think you could leave our party and think there'd be no consequences?" The leader of the group demanded angrily.

"You told me that I could join when I had the time Sigurd, and that I could leave whenever I wished!" Leafa replied angrily about how Sigurd is trying to force Leafa to stay.

"You're one of the most famous players in our party. If you leave suddenly with no reason, you'll damage my reputation." Sigurd retorts with the same degree of anger as before, with a strong mix of egotism as he speaks of 'his reputation'.

"_Hikaru, we need to help her._" Karen whispers worriedly, hearing what Sigurd is saying.

"_You're right Karen...wait, what is Kazuto doing?_" Hikaru whispers back, before noticing Kazuto walk off toward Leafa and the others.

Meanwhile, Kazuto merely walks towards Sigurd.

"Party members are not items." Kazuto says in his usual calm tone.

"What did you say Spriggan?" Sigurd demands with a angry scowl.

"You can't keep players in you party all the time, as if they were your equipment." Kazuto says with the same tone.

"You dare lecture me you damn Spriggan?!" Sigurd was getting angrier; his hand had strayed to his sword, in preparation to draw it.

"_Hikaru, we can't stand around now, Kazuto may need our help._" Karen whispers in a serious tone.

"_Yeah, let's go._" Hikaru whispers back.

The pair was on their way towards the group when Sigurd started talking again.

"You clearly must be a renegade player who got kicked out of his own territory!" Sigurd exclaims with a rage befitting a Salamander player.

"Don't be mean Sigurd, I'm partying with Kirito-kun now." Leafa retorts straight back to him.

"Leafa, whoever you are" Sigurd growls angrily, jabbing a finger at Hikaru at the second half of his remark "Do you plan on abandoning the Sylphs and becoming a renegade like this Spriggan?" Sigurd demands with minor confusion at the arrival of a new Sylph, but still his anger burned.

Leafa looks slightly flabbergasted, but regains her composure very quickly.

"Yeah, I'm leaving Sylvain." Leafa resolves angrily.

"I have no loyalty to the Sylphs, so I have no problem leaving either, and my name is Ulkaios." Hikaru snapped angrily, he's pissed that this...Sigurd is harassing Leafa and Kazuto.

"Count me in too Leafa." Karen says.

"Ulkaios, whoever you are, you're coming with me?" Leafa asks in shock.

"My name is Ashikaga, and yeah, I am." Karen states.

Sigurd gets even angrier and draws his sword pointing it at Kazuto, with Hikaru and Karen drawing their weapons as well.

"_Don't even think about it._" Karen snarls very angrily, having no problem fighting other players if they're harassing her friends.

"As long as you were just going to fly around aimlessly, I wouldn't have bothered to deal with this. However, since you aim to be a thief, I have no choice but to deal with you. Since you're here in Sylph territory, you have no issues with dying, right Spriggan?" Sigurd demanded.

Kazuto looks shocked for half a second then merely sighs, probably because Sigurd does not scare him at all after everything he's experienced in Aincrad. Almost immediately, one of Sigurd's colleagues speaks out.

"This isn't the time Sigurd, if you kill someone who isn't even able to fight back in front of everyone."

Sigurd gasps in shock and looks around to the surrounding Sylphs in the tower staring at him. He reluctantly sheathes his weapon, with Karen and Hikaru doing the same, and says "Once you leave Sylvain, you had better run and hide Leafa. If you betray me, you'll regret it immediately." Sigurd states in a cold tone before departing with his group.

"Leafa, are you sure about abandoning your territory? I don't want you throwing everything away for me." Kirito says with relative sadness.

* * *

Leafa is quiet and merely pushes Kazuto towards the center elevator, and motions Hikaru and Karen to follow. When they exit the elevator, they find themselves on the top of the tower, which offers an incredible view of the surrounding fields.

"This view is incredible." Kazuto and Karen say at the same time.

"I know right, whenever I come up here and gaze at the sky, it makes everything else feel so tiny in comparison." Leafa says while reaching out to the sky with her right arm. "This was a good chance for me actually. I've been wanting to leave Sylvain for a while now."

"But, I feel like I forced you to leave on a bad note." Kazuto seemed sad about this.

Karen and Hikaru glance at Kirito, surprised that Kazuto is being so compassionate towards Leafa.

"I couldn't think of any other way I could leave Sylvain, Kirito-kun." Leafa states, absolutely nonchalant at leaving.

"Hey, Leafa, Ashikaga, do either of you know what a 'renegade' is?" Kazuto asks curiously, wondering what the term means after hearing Sigurd calling him one.

"A renegade is a player who abandons their territory. They're greatly hated by other players." Karen looked down sadly; she herself is considered a renegade.

"Leafa, are you sure about this? You're going to rather long lengths for someone you just recently met." Kazuto says in surprise, hearing the explanation from Karen.

"Yeah, but I don't know why players dislike renegades so much, even if they're renegade, they're still a part of their nation." Leafa still sounded as though she didn't care.

There's a little silence before a voice is heard

"Humans are so complex; I don't understand why they desire to seek others to appear in such unusual ways." A small fairy appears from Kirito's coat pocket.

"_Wait...is that Yui?_" Karen and Hikaru mutter to themselves.

"What do you mean?" Leafa asks.

"I'd want to express emotion in simple ways." Yui says after kissing Kazuto's cheek.

"That's some AI, she nearly seems human. Are all private pixies like that?" Leafa asked, just slightly curious.

"She's...weirder than most AIs." Kazuto says with a light blush from the kiss, stuffing Yui in his coat pocket.

"I see. The desire to seek others-" Leafa mutters quietly, before Karen interrupts her.

"Not to ruin the moment, but I think we should get going." Karen pointed out, interrupting the conversation with mild reluctance in her tone.

"Right, let's go." Leafa says before she gets interrupted by a voice coming from the elevator.

"Leafa!" The voice called out, as the elevator door opens.

"Oh, Recon." Leafa asks.

"I can't believe you Leafa; you should've said something before you left!" Recon says.

"Sorry, I forgot to mention it Recon." Leafa laughed.

Recon sighs "Leafa, they said you left our group".

"Well, I did it from the spur of the moment actually. Anyway, what are you going to do Recon?" Leafa says nonchalantly.

"I want to go with you Leafa but...there's something bothering me, I need to do a little investigation so I'm going to be staying with Sigurd's party for a while. Kirito, Ashikaga, Ulkaios, Leafa has a tendency to get into trouble, so be careful." Recon says with mixed tones, he must've been in the lobby where they were and overheard the fight.

"Understood." Kazuto, Karen, and Hikaru reply in unison.

"And just to make things a little clear, Leafa's my-" Recon was cut off by Leafa stomping on his foot.

"The four of us are going to be in neutral territory for a while, send me a message if you need anything Recon." Leafa called out, not showing any anger.

* * *

Leafa and the others took off from the tower and begin flying away from Sylvain. They fly for roughly an hour when Hikaru begins shaking in his flight, having nearly fallen twice and being helped by Karen.

"What's going on? I'm feeling a little weak..." Hikaru says feeling exhausted.

"I told you that you can't fly forever, we're probably reaching our limits, let's touch down and take a break." Leafa explains with a mildly stern tone, emphasizing how she mentioned the limits of the flight engine.

"Are you going to be alright Ulkaios?" Karen asks in a concerned tone, with her protective instincts from Senryaku returning.

"I...don't know." Hikaru shook his head sadly.

"What's wrong Ulkaios? Do you have a low constitution stat?" Leafa asks.

"I don't know. I hate that I'm being a burden though." Hikaru says.

"It's okay; the Ancient Forest is nearby, how about we stop there everyone." Leafa says with a casual tone, proposing an idea on where to rest for a short while.

* * *

Alfheim Standard Time: [16:00] August 1st, 2025

The group of four are resting on a small island among many above the forest. Leafa and Kazuto are still in good shape and have plenty of flying time available to them so they decide to hunt some wyverns, with Kazuto using his sword and Leafa demonstrating a unique skill of magic. However, Hikaru is feeling exhausted and Karen decided to sit with him while he rests. It took him a few hours to fully recover from this new sensation and the burden of flying.

"Hikaru, are you alright? Do you have the same situation as our time in Aincrad?" Karen asks worriedly.

"I don't know." Hikaru groans a little as he walks about a little before walking back to Karen "I may regret asking this, but I want you to slash me." Hikaru says with a grim expression, wondering if he lacks pain absorbers like in Aincrad. He doesn't want to run into a scenario of him being in pain in battle. He wants to test the factor in a controlled environment first as he can foresee two outcomes: He has a pain absorber and can fight as free as he desires with minimal to no negative repercussions, or he once again lacks it, meaning that Hikaru will have to fight more cautiously because of the flight engine being a far more powerful, yet risky factor.

"Are you insane?! If it's the same situation like Aincrad, you'll be in pain if I slash you!" Karen says in utter shock, with her developing a scowl at the idea.

"Just do it! Remember that I'm good at minimizing the pain's effects." Hikaru lightly shouts, telling Karen to do this.

"If you insist..." Karen muttered to herself angrily.

Karen draws a small sword she bought in Sylvain for 300 Yuld and very reluctantly slashes Hikaru's arm, leaving a gash of data three inches deep.

"Hikaru...how do you feel?" Karen asks worriedly, with her not believing that she just attacked one of her friends in such a way. This one action made her feel like she's betraying each and every one of her friends from how she just attacked one of her colleagues and closest friends.

"I feel...nothing, I can't feel pain here!" Hikaru broke into a grin, seeing the virtual gash in his arm yet he can't feel the sensation at all.

"That's wonderful...I was so scared for a minute there." Karen sighs in relief.

"Anyway, Karen, since you're here, were you able to find any clues on where Katsuo and the others are?"

"Sadly no. Though, I've been working with a player named Okamoto to try finding them, but we split ways for a while before I went to Sylvain. She told me she was going to wait for me in Lugru, an underground city."

"I see, does that mean you'll need to leave us to find this Okamoto...um, would you mind if I called you Ash as a nickname?" Hikaru asks, with him being rather cautious at the end.

"Go ahead, Aio. anyway, to answer your question, not necessarily, I asked her to keep in touch with me on occasion. We met about two days after I was made a renegade." Karen says with a smile at the nickname she gave Hikaru.

"Aio? Really?" Hikaru asks disappointedly, wondering why Karen suddenly gave him a nickname, and why that of all things. His favorite nickname in Aincrad: Jinsoku was one given to him through reputation as a fast fighter, and it sounded much better than 'Aio'.

"If you want to call me Ash, I'm going to call you Aio, atleast, while we're using these new names. I could've easily decided to call you Ai, which is a girl's name." After saying this, Karen easily grinned at the look on Hikaru's face.

"Okay, okay, I'm okay with Aio, just...please don't call me Ai." Hikaru pleads desperately.

"Understood." Karen laughs at the response from Hikaru.

"How long have you all been here actually?" Hikaru asks curiously.

"Around two months, I can't recognize anyone from Aincrad aside from voice. I haven't been able to find anyone from SAO so I've been on my own, desperately trying to find people from Aincrad and establish a place for us to meet up." Karen's mood immediately dropped to a despondent level as she says this, having been searching for her friends ever since she got in this world two months ago.

"Well, now that the two of us and Kazuto are reunited, we'll do our best to find the others." Hikaru says happily.

"Yeah, we'll find them before too long." Karen says, trying to sound happy despite how distraught she is over the situation.

Kazuto and Leafa touch down on the island a little while after the conversation between Karen and Hikaru ended.

"Ulkaios, Ashikaga, sorry but I have to log out. I'll see you guys tomorrow." Leafa says with a small frown, before trying to smile about her being back later.

"Sure, but if you wouldn't mind, could you call us Ash and Aio? We know our game names are long, so we wanted to make things simpler." Karen says.

"Sure, Ash, Aio, I'll be back tomorrow." Leafa says, with Kazuto nodding, though he's a bit baffled at how Karen suddenly decided to give a nickname to herself and Hikaru, since she's never done such a thing before in the three years he's known her.

Leafa's body remains motionless for a time which is the sign of delayed log outs, so Karen and Hikaru exchange more conversation to pass time when Leafa's body vanishes, though Kazuto stays for a little while longer.

"Sorry Karen, Hikaru, but I have to go too. But I do have to say, it's been good seeing you guys again." Kazuto says with a sad smile.

"Likewise; I was worried I'd never see you all again. I feel like that if the three of us were able to find each other, we could find the others." Karen says with a small frown, trying to sound optimistic however.

"Yeah, take care of yourselves, alright? I'll come back tomorrow morning." Kazuto says as he begins to log out.

* * *

When Kazuto logs out, Karen opens her inventory and takes out a small sphere.

"Help me out. We should set up camp for the night." Karen seriously says to Hikaru.

"Oh, right. Um, what is that thing?"

"It's sort of like Aincrad's Mirage Sphere. Except for how, if you infuse it with magic, you can create a field and project a campsite. If you can help me, we can make a pretty big field."

"Um...how do I use magic?"

Karen sighs deeply and says "Okay, crash course. This is the spell needed to use this item. Just repeat what I say: Þeír slíta nótt dýpt svalr." *1

While Karen said the incantation, letters began floating around her and an indigo colored beam flows into the sphere.

"Okay. Let me try; Þeír slíta nótt dýpt slavr." Hikaru says, trying to repeat the incantation used by Karen, but doesn't do it right, having messed up one single verse in the incantation.

"W-Wait! That's not how you-!" Karen rapidly shouts to Hikaru, but is too late to stop the explosion and huge smoke cloud in the area.

The pair then cough rather deeply from the smoke inhalation "Get down!" Karen shouts, quickly diving to the ground with Hikaru doing the same.

"What in the world was that?!" Hikaru asks in shock, coughing from the smoke.

Karen coughs rather badly yet quickly responds to Hikaru's question "It's called the Spellword Fumble Effect. If you mess up an incantation...you saw what happened. God...I can barely breathe."

"Are you going to be okay Karen?" Hikaru asks in between his coughing.

"I think so." Karen mumbles weakly "Just be more careful, alright?"

"Yeah, I will." Hikaru sheepishly nods.

* * *

After some time passes and when the smoke clears, the pair then redo the spell and do it properly, projecting a rather fancy campsite that covers the floating island. Karen then uses a small fire spell to light the fire and places two boxes over it

"Try to make yourself comfy Hikaru, we're gonna be here awhile." Karen says with a mild sigh, laying down by the fire.

"Hey Karen, what race is Okamoto? I'm a little curious." Hikaru asks, sitting across from Karen near the fire.

"She's a member of the feline Cait Sith race. She's a good friend to have, and she knows nearly everything about this game. She's been helping me out in exchange for me saving her life against a very large group of Wyverns a while back. I don't know why, but she seems really familiar to me, but I can't put my finger on it." Karen says rather calmly, having been pondering why Okamoto was so familiar to her.

"I see; I'll trust your faith in this person Karen." Hikaru calmly replies, knowing that he may end up needed as much help as possible to find the other players from Aincrad.

"Thanks, she did mention she was going to get a few friends to come meet me in Lugru."

"I'm glad you've made new friends here, but I hope we can find Katsuo, Kana, Sylvia, Haruka, Mamoru, and the others soon." Hikaru says with mixed feelings.

"I miss them too Hikaru, the sooner we're reunited, the happier I'll be." Karen says quietly.

* * *

Karen then grabs the two boxes that were lying above the fire on the metal spit and she hands one to Hikaru.

"Here you go, I imagine you're hungry." Karen says, holding back a minor blush.

"I have to say, I'm glad you always went the extra mile to help me back in Aincrad and now. Thank you Karen." Hikaru says in a grateful tone, blushing lightly at the generous gesture.

"U-Um...it's nothing, I had to do it because in our group, the only other master cooks were Kana and Haruka. Kana was busy taking care of Katsuo and Haruka was not with us most of the time." Karen says nervously while blushing, trying to pull off a tsundere-style explanation, which does not faze Hikaru, as he's been around Karen long enough to know when she's lying.

"Still, I'm grateful." Hikaru says.

"So you two _really_ are who I thought you were." The navigation pixie: Yui says, flying out from a tree on the far end of the floating island, hiding from when Hikaru caused that explosion and coming out now.

"Yui, is that really you?" Karen asks in mild shock.

"That's right, I'm glad to see you Karen, Hikaru" Yui says happily, flying toward the pair.

"Yui, I want to ask you, with your AI background, would it be possible for you to find Katsuo, Kana, Sylvia, Haruka, Mamoru, or the others?" Karen asks, wanting to get to business ASAP.

"Sadly no, I no longer have access to admin controls, all I can access is map data, and character profiles to a very limited extent." Yui says sadly, feeling guilty about the lack of abilities she has access to in this world.

"You said you can access profiles, how far can you go with that?" Karen asks curiously, wanting to know how much or rather, how little, she has to work with.

"All I have access to is character names and the date they joined." Yui says quietly.

"Yui, if you can, could you compile a list of players who joined in the last two months? It would help lower the odds." Karen asks seriously, if they want to find the others, they need to lower the number of variables.

"Let me see..." Yui says while putting her hands on both sides of her head. "There are over five hundred players who started playing within the last two months."

"Over five _hundred_?! How are we supposed to find our friends out of such a huge list?! And especially since this world is so huge!" Hikaru exclaims in horror.

"We'll figure something out Aio. Worst case, we just wander this world until we find people from Aincrad. Anyway, Yui, can you tell which players entered this game through unorthodox methods?"

"Sadly no, the system of the game won't let me do so." Yui said sadly. "And there's too many people for me to properly list off. I'll just randomly list three people I see in the list...eto...Okamoto, Yamakage, and Minatoya." Yui says calmly and frowned slightly at the end, listing off three random players she sees in the list out of over five hundred.

"Okay, I know Okamoto first hand, and she's not from SAO, I know that much. I've heard of Yamakage, he's very fierce and has made it pretty high up the Salamander military chain of command, and he's only been here two months. I've never heard of Minatoya before, but it wouldn't hurt to try seeking her out. But for now, we should try aiming for Yamakage. I doubt he's one of our SAO players, but who knows." Karen says with a frown. "Actually, Yui, are you hungry?" Karen continues worriedly.

"Not really Karen, my conversion into a Navigation Pixie removed my need to eat, but I won't turn down food if you offer it Karen." Yui says quietly and happily at the end.

"Very well Yui, let me bring out a new bento box, but I think it'll be too large considering your pixie form, would it be possible for you to change to human form?" Karen says, opening her inventory window.

Yui changes her to her human form, accepts the bento and is about to begin eating but is interrupted by Karen

"Yui, mind waiting a moment? I just remembered that the food there is near frozen, let's warm it up first, okay?"

"Okay."

* * *

The group wait a few minutes for Yui's bento to warm up and they then eat the food that Karen made, and while they eat, Hikaru decides to ask Karen something he noticed a while ago

"Karen, you don't need to answer this if you don't want to, but you seem to know a lot about the renegades. Is there a reason for this?" Hikaru asks softly, not wanting to push Karen but he knew that Karen seemed down when speaking of it.

"It's not something I want to remember, but I know you'll never let me live it down unless I tell you, so I guess I'll explain. It happened when I arrived in this world about two months ago. I was fighting a particularly strong monster and when I slayed it, some Imp players saw how strong I was and how strong the strategies I used were so I was drafted into the Imp army. That afternoon, we were fighting a boss in the mountains to the northwest of Imp territory and I was assigned as aerial diversion, but I had no idea that I could even fly then so... I fled in the direction of Dragon Valley north of Salamander territory and abandoned the group I was assigned to. After an hour passed, I got a notice that I was exiled from the Imp nation on the charge of desertion. I spent a full week traveling Dragon Valley's northern border and noticed Okamoto near Ruger Corridor. I saved her life and she's been helping me ever since as a thank you. That is how I was made a renegade." Karen replies in a downcast tone, looking down to the ground in sadness, with those events having scarred her a little but nowhere near Aincrad's level.

"Oh...uh...I'm sorry for asking about it Karen. I didn't want you bringing up such painful memories." Hikaru says quietly, feeling guilty about making her remember things she may have wanted to keep quiet about.

"It's alright. It doesn't exactly bug me. Things like this happen when you draft people out of the blue." Karen says calmly, not wanting to show that it actually _is_ a sensitive topic for her.

They continue eating the food and shortly after they finish eating the food, Yui returns to pixie form and flies in front of Karen.

"Would you mind if I sleep with you since Papa isn't here?" Yui asks cutely.

"Go ahead Yui. We don't mind, though we're going to be awake for a while longer." Karen returns with a calm smile.

"Thank you." Yui says with a big grin.

Yui flies inside Karen's shirt pocket and apparently falls asleep nearly instantly with Karen and Hikaru lightly smiling at the situation.

* * *

Alfheim Standard Time: [18:00] August 1st, 2025

Hikaru has fallen asleep, with him feeling exhausted from all of the events happening since he arrived in the morning to now, with Yui flying out of Karen's shirt pocket in her sleep, laying down near Hikaru in her human form and Hikaru instinctively pulls her close as she does so, with Karen smiling even more at the scene she's seeing.

"Hehe, those two look so cute together." Karen lightly giggles, seeing the pair sleeping next to each other like father and daughter or like young siblings.

Not long after seeing this, she grips her head, suffering from a minor headache

"Ow...what's...going on?" Karen groans weakly as she grips her head. "This hurts so bad…" After some time passed, the headache fades as mysteriously as it appeared. "What...what the hell was that? Hm." Karen rubs the temple of her forehead a little "Hehe, I shouldn't worry about it." Karen quietly giggles after she finished rubbing her temple.

* * *

Alfheim Standard Time: [19:30] August 1st, 2025

Karen stretches her arms and lightly yawns. She then glances at the see-through tent where Hikaru and Yui are sleeping in and when she is about to fall asleep herself, she hears people nearby

"Get away from me!" The voice, which sounds like a teenaged girl, shouts angrily, with it sounding scared as well.

"Not a chance Undine. Give yourself up and we'll give you the opportunity to become a healer to our Alpha Battalion willingly."

"No! I don't want to work for you Salamanders!" The girl shouts in the same tone, flying away from a group of eight players fully armored in red.

Karen brings out one of her spears and flies toward the Undine girl and the Salamander players

"Hey, leave that girl alone!" Karen shouts angrily, throwing her spear at a Salamander and does it accurately enough to pierce the player's heart, reducing him to a Remain Light status nearly instantly, since all of Karen's high level stats from SAO crossed over.

"GAH!" The Salamander player stabbed by Karen's spear shouts in pain as he's reduced to a Remain Light, with the other Salamanders and the Undine player staring at Karen in utter surprise.

"How dare you attack my team! You all, get that Undine. I'll fight this Imp." The leader of this group exclaims angrily "You will pay for disrespecting me, Major Yamakage!"

"_Ah crap. I did not want to fight Yamakage like this! He's one of the strongest Salamanders there is! But I have no choice, I need to keep that girl safe!_" Karen mutters fearfully in her mind, with her drawing one of her stronger spears and taking up a customized Shaolin stance she built with training from Katsuo in Aincrad.

"_That style...isn't that…?_" Yamakage asks himself, seeing the custom style being used by this Imp player "Elwing, everyone; change of plans. Imp, let's make a deal. If you can defeat my whole team here, we'll retreat. If you fail, you and that girl must join my battalion. Elwing, lead the charge."

"Hai, Yamakage-dono." Elwing, the sub-leader to Yamakage, says with a fierce salute, drawing her katana.

"If it means protecting her, fine by me. I won't let you Salamanders force her to help your plans." Karen says fiercely.

"...I recognize you. You're that imp renegade: Ashikaga! You've been destroying entire brigades of Salamanders! You've been a massive thorn to us." Elwing exclaims, having glanced at Karen's appearance.

"You know her Elwing?" Yamakage asks in mild surprise.

"Somewhat, Yamakage-dono. We met once northwest of Dragon Valley while you were at the leaders' council roughly two weeks ago. She was somehow able to wipe out half our battalion before she fled with Okamoto's Dragoon."

"Okamoto? She's helping this Imp girl?" Yamakage asks curiously "_Strange, why would Okamoto help her? Izanagi, Yugana, and Okamoto have helped us so much and now I hear they're back-stabbing me and Elwing? Strange._" Although it's hidden because of Yamakage's helmet, he is smirking at the update from Elwing when she mentioned how Karen defeated half of Yamakage's battalion "_Also, this Imp was able to wipe out half my battalion single-handed? Doing so requires significant strategy and strength since I personally helped train nearly half of these guys and I was trained by Karen and the others in Senryaku and Aincrad. I doubt even General Eugene could do such things so...she has to be an Aincrad player. Only they are so accustomed to VRMMO physics. And such a strong tactician...Karen. Is she this imp player? Ashikaga?...I need to investigate further. Hm, if this Ashikaga truly is Karen, I guess that explains why Okamoto and the others are helping her._" Yamakage says in his mind, wanting to see if this Ashikaga truly is the Karen he knows.

Elwing and two other Salamanders in the group draw their weapons and dash toward Karen and take up aerial combat, but when the two Salamanders got close, something hits them and they instantly enter Remain Light state. Karen and Elwing are left wide-eyed at the sudden death of the two Salamanders. Yamakage, the Salamanders, and the Undine player look at the battle in utter awe considering the sudden deaths of the two players. "What the hell was that?!" Yamakage is rather horrified by the sudden demise of the two Salamanders, since they were some of the best in the battalion and they were slain in seconds.

Karen, the Undine player, and the Salamanders in the area rapidly look in various directions, looking to see what attacked the Salamanders.

"Major Yamakage! Unidentified monsters approaching from the west!" One of the Salamanders shouts, noticing a large swarm of hornet like monsters.

One icon on the creatures is extremely recognizable by three of the people here, which is a ringed Eye.

"_XANA?! Impossible!_" Karen, Yamakage, and the Undine player exclaim in their minds. "_How did XANA get here in Alfheim?! He was in Aincrad!_" The Undine player further exclaims, remembering that she died at least twice against XANA's monsters back in Aincrad.

"Salamanders, fall back and regroup with the rest of the battalion! Imp, Undine, if you want to survive, come with us!" Yamakage shouts to his men and to Karen's group, with him abandoning his prior mission of getting that Undine and focus on routing this new enemy force.

"I have friends out here, I don't want to abandon them!" Karen shouts, fearing for Hikaru's and Yui's safety.

"Fine, but just hurry! We need to get out of here before my battalion gets overwhelmed by these things!" Yamakage shouts, flying to the other Salamanders.

The Undine however flies toward Karen when Yamakage took off "I recognize your voice Karen, it's me Haruka!"

"Haruka?! Thank god I found you. Anyway, let's save the reintroduction for when we get Hikaru and link up with Yamakage's Salamanders." Karen says in surprise, before dashing toward Hikaru.

"Hikaru's here too?!" Haruka shouts, surprised to hear of Hikaru's appearance, before trying to put it aside for now "R-Right. let's get him and get to the Salamanders. They were trying to recruit me against my will, but I'll be safer with them than on my own if XANA's here." Haruka says, following Karen.

* * *

Karen and Haruka land on the island where Hikaru and Yui is and Karen swiftly undoes the spell of the campsite area

"Hikaru, get up! We need to get out of here!" Karen shouts fearfully, rapidly shaking Hikaru while Haruka is watching over the area in case more Hornets show up, which happens rather quickly.

"What are these things?! I know I never saw such things in Aincrad before!" Haruka shouts, using some magic on these new creatures.

"K-Karen…? What's wrong?" Hikaru mumbles weakly, still half-asleep from Karen's harsh wake-up call.

"Get your ass moving Hikaru! XANA is here in Alfheim! We need to get out of here!" Karen shouts, pulling Hikaru up.

"Huh…? Wait, XANA?!" Hikaru mumbles, before regaining his senses "But how did-" Hikaru tries to continue before being interrupted by Karen

"No time to chat! This area's getting overwhelmed, we need to regroup with Yamakage!" Karen exclaims, helping Hikaru to his feet.

"B-But what about Kazuto and Leafa?!"

"We'll get them later, but for now we need to get out of this area!"

* * *

Alfheim Standard Time: [20:00] August 1st, 2025

The group flies in the direction of Yamakage's battalion and finds that they set up camp outside Lugru Corridor, with the area being overrun with Hornets and the various monsters used in Aincrad: Krabs, Creepers, Tarantulas, and some new kind of squid monster.

"What the hell are these-GAH!" One of the Salamanders shouts fearfully, being shot repeatedly by a Creeper and being reverted to Remain Light status.

"_Damn it! We're getting overwhelmed, just like Aincrad! Why is this happening so quickly?! At least these people can't die, that's one thing._" Yamakage shouts in his mind, dodging the attacks from these new monsters.

"Takuro! Major, we can't hold this area at this rate, we need to fall back to Gadan!" Elwing shouts fearfully as she sees one of her comrades die, trying to dodge the attacks from the Tarantulas.

"We can't do that Lieutenant. Our mission takes priority!" Yamakage retorts angrily, trying to get close to the monsters to destroy them.

"But Yamakage-dono!" Elwing pleads desperately before being stopped by Yamakage

"You know our mission Elwing! We are Salamanders! We never abandon our mission, no matter how many losses we take! Everyone, reorganize your formations and bring the fight to these beasts, follow my lead!" Yamakage shouts fiercely, drawing his two swords: Onyx Shark and Titanium Heart and attacking the ringed eyes on two of the Creepers.

"R-Right! Everyone, follow Yamakage's command!" Elwing shouts, drawing her sword and directing the remaining Salamanders to battle.

"Come on Aio, let's help out the Salamanders. Um...whatever name you're using, cover us with healing."

"Mikuya, just like Aincrad and got it Ashikaga."

"Hmm, for now, would you mind if I merely call you Miku? And call me Ash." Karen asks calmly.

"I...don't mind it, but why?"

"No reason, but I just kind of want to do things like this. I have been since...a little while ago." Karen admits with a small sheepish smile.

"Is that why you gave me the nickname: Aio?" Hikaru asks.

"Partly, but come on, Yamakage and the others need our help!"

* * *

Alfheim Standard Time: [20:45] August 1st, 2025

The monsters belonging to XANA have been pushed back for the time being, but the entire Salamander group belonging to Yamakage aside from himself, Elwing, and one other member have been slain and been sent back to Salamander territory

"Thank you for your assistance Ashikaga, all of you. We owe you for helping us in our fight. As a gesture of goodwill, we'll fall back and give up pursuit of our mission for now." Yamakage says, bowing in appreciation.

"I must thank you as well Ashikaga. You are a thorn in our side yet you still chose to help us." Elwing replies solemnly, bowing as well.

"If it's any condolence, I never wanted to fight you Salamanders, you fought me and I defended myself." Karen nervously chuckles at Elwing's remark.

"Heh. Elwing, Kimori, get back to Fellyre Shire and regroup with General Eugene and his soldiers to prepare for our mission. I need to speak with these three privately." Yamakage chuckles before sternly stating his order.

"But...Major-" Elwing tries to say in concern before being interrupted.

"Elwing, I am giving you a direct order. Fall back and regroup with General Eugene. I'll catch up." Yamakage shouts fiercely to his sub-leader.

"Yes sir." Elwing replies despondently, flying away with Kimori in tow.

"That was just harsh Yamakage." Hikaru says in mild shock over Yamakage's fierce attitude there.

"Sometimes I have to be harsh to her. She has many of the requirements of being an ideal leader: She's honest, fiercely loyal, strong, she knows the strengths and weaknesses of a lot of people in my battalion and she never criticizes them for it. In fact, she goes out of her way to help them refine their strengths and dispel as much of their weakness as she can. But she's a bit bull-headed and doesn't listen to me sometimes. However, she is still a strong leader and everyone knows she handles leadership on my behalf. I can't stand it much. If she worked on her own weaknesses, she'd be an ideal leader, just like this one girl I know. She rarely fought granted, but she was a very good tactician and her very presence raised everyone's morale because of how hard she pushed herself to help others." Yamakage says calmly, glancing at the sky.

"Yeah. That girl was a strong tactician, she was fair and honest for the most part. Her own special ability helped cement her reputation as a strong tactician for the others." Karen continues, knowing who Yamakage truly is after hearing him speak and referencing a girl with strong skill in strategy.

"How did…? Wait...hehe. Karen, good to see you." Yamakage says with a small laugh, removing his helmet for the first time since he got the armor and reveals the person beneath it. Although his hair color is a darker red, the face of the reputable Major Yamakage is nearly identical to that of Senryaku's second sub-leader in Aincrad: Masaru or more commonly called by his friends: Katsuo Viperia.

"Katsuo. I'm glad to see you." Karen says softly, hugging Katsuo.

"Likewise. The last two months have been hell without you guys around. I hate to dash, but...I have to return to the others. Also, be careful you three." Katsuo replies in the same tone, hugging Karen for a short time before letting go.

"Why?" Haruka asks curiously, wondering why Katsuo added 'Be careful you three', with her thinking that it's because of XANA.

"Captain Kagemune assigned a small brigade of Salamanders after a Sylph and Spriggan that was in this area. The brigade is determined to slay the pair, and I don't want you three hurt because of them. However, since XANA has returned, I doubt Kagemune will be able to get here. I imagine all Salamander forces will be reassigned to repel those new monsters and they'll need my knowledge to do so."

"Can't you do anything Katsuo? Kazuto and Leafa don't deserve being hunted." Hikaru worriedly asks, being sincere about his desire to keep them safe.

"Kazuto?! I'm guessing he's the Spriggan?"

Hikaru and Karen nod in response

"Crap, if I knew it was him sooner...god damn it. Look, I can't go against Kagemune now, it's too late. That brigade will be here tomorrow afternoon to ambush you all. As soon as Kazuto and Leafa get on, get them to Lugru. You'll be safe there. I need to go. Best of luck Hikaru, Karen, Haruka." Katsuo lightly snarls in irritation, recommending a path of action before giving his farewells and putting his helmet back on, then flying away to the rest of the Salamanders.

When Katsuo flies off, Hikaru, Karen, and Haruka are left in the area

"Karen, Hikaru, we should get to a town and rest for the night. There's one about half an hour south of here. I actually was traveling with another Undine named Liatris but we got separated when the Salamanders began chasing me, she may be there actually."

"Lead the way Miku." Karen says with a smile.

"Okay um...not that I mind, but we're by ourselves; you can call me Haruka."

"What's the fun in that? I want to call you Miku." Karen says with a giddy smile, flying south to the settlement.

* * *

Alfheim Standard Time: [21:00] August 1st, 2025

With Karen not around, Haruka and Hikaru talk a little bit

"Um...Hikaru..." Haruka tries to ask, albeit rather awkwardly at Karen's sudden attitude.

"Don't ask me. This is as much a shock to me as it is to you. Katsuo sounded like an absolute jerk, Karen's too upbeat...this is getting a little bit weird." Hikaru says, knowing what question is on her mind, as it's on his as well.

"Well...let's try to follow her lead alright? She may be acting weird, but she's still our leader. Someone we can trust with our lives…right?"

"I hope so. While she was friendly toward us all, she was never this...bubbly." Hikaru mutters quietly. "Yui, can you figure anything out about this?"

Yui flies out of Hikaru's coat pocket and floats in front of him "Let me see." Yui says, putting her hands around her head for a few moments "Hmm...it's a little tough to confirm, but I'm seeing signs of accelerated soul modification in both Karen and Katsuo."

"Soul modification? What are you talking about?" Hikaru asks agape.

"Someone or something is trying to change Karen, Katsuo, and who knows how many others."

"Yui, is it similar to what happened to myself and XANA?"

"Yes and no. I've been trying to do a little investigation on the matters of yourself and XANA and a theory I have is that it was a significantly advanced process that must have taken years to do. Look, when I say this, try not to panic as it's just one of my theories." Yui says calmly, trying to ease the upcoming revelation without horrifying Hikaru.

"What is it Yui?" Hikaru asks curiously, wondering what Yui's thinking about.

"Well...I think that...you aren't exactly...alive." Yui says weakly, hating herself for outright saying it.

"Not...alive...? Yui, please tell me you're joking." Hikaru pleads.

"I wish I was, but Hikaru, remember that this is just a theory of mine. Considering what I know of dimensional travel, which is not much granted, but considering your entrance into this dimension; I have a suspicion that your real self perished and an AI was created of yourself, with all of your memories being uploaded to make it think it was you."

"I...what?" Hikaru asks, with himself and Haruka staring at Yui with mixed emotions.

"I'm sorry I had to say it Hikaru, but considering your own circumstances, it's not very feasible to believe that you're still a human being. It's far more feasible that you're an Artificial Intelligence with your memories and emotions being uploaded to it to make it seem like you're human. As a result of your inherited senses, you may have felt pain and exhaustion, though in reality, it's all fake. The theories that exist about dimensional travel suggest that it's extremely dangerous when not used properly. XANA easily survived the travel because of how it's not alive like you were. Damage is expected, but repairable, but for living beings, it's likely that you died or were close to dead when you arrived in this world."

Hikaru is left utterly speechless at the new revelation of how Hikaru is possibly not human like his friends and is possibly an AI like Yui. For the last four years, Hikaru would never have even considered this possibility. However, he can't exactly deny since he knew that he woke up in the Forest of Doubt, so he can't shoot down the possibility of prior manipulation from someone on the other side.

"Hikaru, it doesn't matter if you're human or an AI. You're still our friend and we spent years fighting side-by-side." Haruka says, lightly hugging Hikaru to cheer him up.

"Thanks Haruka. For now, let's try catching up with Karen." Hikaru says with a small forced smile, feeling glad that Haruka's trying to cheer him up, even though he's feeling so rattled over the situation.

"It's no problem Hikaru. You know that we Aincrad players have to stick together, even through Hell's deepest labyrinth." Haruka says, with her lightly joking at the end.

"Haha. Thanks Haruka, I needed a pick-up from that shocking revelation."

"You're welcome. Now let's go catch up with Karen, baka." Haruka replies with a friendly sarcastic insult, flying to catch up with Karen.

"Oh, you're going down. Come on Yui, let's get going." Hikaru says with a friendly, yet smug tone, trying to ignore the shocking revelation right now.

"Okay." Yui says with a friendly smile, flying into Hikaru's shirt pocket.

* * *

Hikaru and Haruka catch up to Karen who is floating near one of the islands in the Ancient Forest and when they catch up with her, they fly to the settlement south of this area.

Author's Notes: *1. I _HATE_ having to deal with the spell names. What I used for this spell is just taking parts of two different spells from the anime.


	6. Chapter 4: Unity leads to Separation

Hikaru has found three of his friends from Aincrad: Karen, Kazuto, and Haruka. Hikaru now has to find Katsuo, Sylvia, Amaterasu (Kana's true name), Mamoru and the others. However, trouble is brewing as XANA has somehow reappeared and appears far more intelligent than before as it seems to value the existence of its existing monsters and is using actual strategy in its methods instead of pure aggression, though it appears just as aggressive as before. How much intelligence is XANA capable of showing in this new world and how will it affect the players, who seem to be struggling to resist it?

_Disclaimer: I don't own anything apart from the words that I write and the characters that I create. Credit goes to the original creator of the SAO universe; credits also to the creators and contributors to the Code Lyoko series and related works._

Author Notes: If you want to understand this story fully, I would highly recommend reading my previous work: Reset Code Aincrad. Also, I've been giving this some thought and, I won't be using a beta reader for any chapter in this story, so I want you guys to review on what you think of my writing style without any checks from betas.

* * *

Alfheim Standard Time: [7:30] August 2nd, 2025

Karen, Hikaru, and Haruka are in a small village named Ichihara having properly rested from all of the events that transpired yesterday, with Karen being the last one in the group to wake up. The group reconvene in the village plaza to discuss what to do now that XANA has made his presence known after they did some shopping in different parts of the village and figure out why the hostile AI actually retreated even though it easily overwhelmed Karen and the others. XANA never acted like this in Aincrad, since it used tactics of attrition, decapitation, and exhaustion, among others. Haruka also found out that her colleague discreetly fled back to Kirimachi when the Salamanders showed up, so Haruka decided to accompany Hikaru and Karen, feeling safer among the group.

"Good morning Aio, Miku." Karen says in a rather bubbly tone, just like how she acted the night before.

"Morning Ash. I see you're acting like you did yesterday."

"Yeah, why would I not? I've always been like this." Karen tilts her head in confusion at Hikaru's statement as it seemed like this was a new thing to him.

Hikaru and Haruka blink rapidly at Karen's statement, with them exchanging glances of heavy confusion at why Karen thinks she has always acted like this. Hikaru walks toward Karen and whispers

"_Karen, what's wrong with you? You rarely, if ever, act like this. You're friendly, but never this bubbly. You learned through your time in Aincrad that being bubbly like you are now is extremely dangerous._"

"_What are you talking about silly Aio? Seriously...um...what's Aincrad?_"

Hikaru is left utterly agape at how Karen seems to have forgotten Aincrad, which was the embodiment of everything in the last three years.

"_K-Karen, please tell me you're just joking around!_" Hikaru pleads desperately, praying that Karen's just trying to be comical.

"_Why are you freaking out Aio?_" Karen asks, not knowing why Hikaru's freaking out so much. "_Why does that name sound so familiar? Aincrad...Aincrad…_" Karen mutters in her mind, trying to wrack her mind for why the name Aincrad seems so familiar to her.

"Aio, Ash, we can't stay here. We need to return to the Ancient Forest and regroup with Kirito and Leafa." Haruka says sternly, hoping that XANA's monsters don't return again.

"Yeah, let's go." Hikaru nods seriously, summoning his dark green wings and taking flight to the island where Kazuto and Leafa were left.

* * *

The group fly back to the Ancient Forest and encounter Katsuo, Elwing, and Kimori sitting in one of the floating islands with them being visibly irritated about something. The trio land near them to let their flying time replenish somewhat while they talk.

"Yamakage? What are you doing here? I thought you left for Gadan yesterday." Hikaru asks curiously, keeping his cover intact and wonders why they're still here.

Katsuo groans when he sees the group and gets up to talk to them "Those damn monsters from before are roaming the entire area in force. We did manage to regroup with a small detachment from our faction but they attacked so rapidly and so strongly that we got scattered." Katsuo then beckons the group to get up "Look, we need your help here. The three of us can't fight these things on our own and I just know they're too strong for you guys either. Let's combine forces so we can survive. Do you agree to a temporary alliance?" Katsuo asks, extending his hand to make this official.

Haruka steps forward and shakes Katsuo's hand "We accept your alliance Yamakage. Just stop forcing me to serve your army. I'm helping you individually, not your entire army."

"Got it. As long as you're working with us, you won't be targeted by other Salamanders."

"So what do you need us to do Yamakage?" Haruka asks, stepping forward to become leader of this group since Karen's not acting like her usual self.

"We contacted some of our allies who were in Lugru before all this started. What we need to do is rendezvous with them. Once we do so, we should be able to make it back to Gadan."

"You want us going to Lugru to gather people so you can return to Salamander territory?" Haruka asks with a small scowl, wanting to be sure she heard him right.

"Mikuya, we are scattered and we've been hearing that a _lot_ of Salamanders are getting overwhelmed by these things. I even heard rumors that these things are beginning to encroach on Sylph, Imp, and Undine territory." Katsuo admits sadly, seeing Kimori and Elwing frown at the repetition of this piece of news.

"It's _that_ bad? I hope Lia-chan is doing okay." Haruka mumbles hearing of the situation from the Salamander Major.

"Lia-chan? Are you speaking of an Undine called Liatris?" Katsuo asks, with Haruka nodding in confirmation at his question.

"Do you know her Yamakage?"

"Yeah, we worked together during most of my campaigns since I entered this world. Lord Izanagi and his companions: Okamoto, Yugana, and Liatris have been helping me a lot."

"Really? If Oka-chan was helping you, why would she help me?" Karen interjects for the first time in a giddy manner, having gotten fed up with being quiet.

"Beats me, and right now, I don't care. Let's get to Lugru when we find your friends. Elwing, Kimori, I want you two to stay here in hiding. Keep me informed on any changes." Katsuo demands this of the remaining Salamanders under his command.

"Hai Yamakage-dono!" Elwing salutes rapidly in response to Katsuo's order as she and Kimori climb nearby trees to keep an aerial viewpoint over the surroundings.

"Alright all of you, let's get moving. Who knows when those damn monsters will return again and if they find us here, we'll be done for."

* * *

Alfheim Standard Time: [8:00] August 2nd, 2025

Haruka and her group land on the island where Kazuto and Leafa were and make it just in time as they log in

"Good morning Ash, Aio." Leafa says in a friendly manner before noticing Mikuya and bows toward her and when she notices Katsuo, she rapidly draws her katana and keeps it in a combat stance "W-Why is a Salamander here?!"

"Leafa, I'll explain later, but he's with us. We need to hurry to Lugru." Hikaru says to the fellow Sylph player, urging the need to hurry.

Leafa looks at Hikaru and sighs as she sheathes her katana "Fine, I'll give you the benefit of a doubt for now. But I want an answer to this later Ulkaios."

"Don't worry, I'll answer it when I can."

"Trust me Leafa, I'm as uneasy about working together just as much as you, but we have no damn choice right now." Katsuo snarls at Leafa rather angrily.

"Don't make me-" Leafa tries to counter before Haruka steps in

"Stop it all of you!" Haruka shouts in frustration, with the group staring at her in surprise from her sudden shout "This is _not_ helping anyone! Like or not, we need to work together! Yamakage, Leafa, put aside your differences right now and realize we're a team!" Haruka continues, knowing that division is ill needed since the vicious AI XANA is in this game world. She knows that it'll take little more than full unification of the entire playerbase to defeat their monsters, in addition to people who know how to fight back.

"She has a point you guys. Lay off the arguments." Hikaru growls angrily, knowing how dangerous Aincrad became when XANA appeared and it's happening again here in Alfheim. "Leafa, go on ahead of us. We need to talk privately."

"Um...alright." Leafa mumbles in confusion, flying toward Lugru.

"Okay, why are you guys so frantic?" Kazuto is confused on what's going on.

Haruka looks around to make sure Leafa's gone "Kazuto, I'm glad to see you. It's me, Haruka. But the reason I'm frantic is...XANA's back."

"Haruka? What a relief. Do you know if anyone else from Aincrad, aside from us, are here?" Kazuto smiles in relief before hearing of XANA, with his face darkening in anger rather strongly, remembering how vicious that damned AI was. "How long has that damn AI been here?"

"It showed itself not long after you left Kazuto." Hikaru informs him of the situation of XANA's arrival.

Kazuto clicks his teeth angrily after hearing that XANA showed up right after he left "Damn it. I'm sorry Hikaru, Karen. If I had known, I would've stayed to help you fight."

"It's okay Kiri. You couldn't have known." Karen giggles happily, trying to reassure the worried Kazuto, causing the group to blink in surprise.

"Okay, what the hell happened to you Ash?" Katsuo angrily asks, wanting to know what the hell is making her act this way.

"What do you mean?" Karen asks innocently.

"You know what I-!" Katsuo tries to shout before being stopped by Haruka

"Stop it, both of you!" Haruka shouts, trying to break up the fight "Look, we can not afford to fight each other! XANA has returned and it clearly is more strategic this time!"

"What do you mean Haruka?" Kazuto asks, wondering what Haruka has on her mind.

"I saw what happened before. XANA's monsters fled when we gained the upper hand and they're focusing their efforts on keeping players divided if what Katsuo said is true. This AI is a lot smarter this time. Before, it didn't care one bit about taking losses, but it's being far more strategic now and is taking steps on keeping powerful players isolated, and many of those powerful players are Salamanders."

"Hmm...that actually makes sense. In terms of physical strength, the Salamander military is the strongest of all the races, so it makes sense for this XANA to keep us scattered. It's why we need to get the allies I asked for and fast."

"What will that do Katsuo?" Hikaru wants to know the exact specifics of his plan here.

"We need to increase our numbers so we can fight those monsters. Those monsters wiped out my entire battalion save myself, my sub-leader, and one other member. They're all in Salamander territory and we're trapped here. I want to remedy that, especially since…" Katsuo says, stopping himself at the end, as he was about to give away details about a secret Op the Salamanders are planning.

"Since...what?" Haruka asks, wondering why Katsuo stopped himself.

"None of your damn business." Katsuo snarls angrily.

"Damn Katsuo. You were never this hostile before!" Hikaru retorts with the same amount of anger.

"Okay, why the hell do you all keep calling me Katsuo?" Katsuo shouts, wanting to know why they keep using that name.

* * *

Hikaru, Haruka, and Kazuto all gasp in horror, as Katsuo has apparently forgotten his real name

"Yamakage, Ash, go on ahead of us. We need to talk privately." Haruka says with a fierce frown.

"Whatever you want." Katsuo sighs, flying away with Karen in tow.

When they're gone, the trio group up to deliberate

"What in the world happened to them?!" Kazuto exclaims, wondering what in the world is making Karen and Katsuo act this way.

"That's what I want to know. Yui, do you have any ideas?" Hikaru mumbles, before asking Yui for her input.

"It's what I told you before Hikaru, but it's much stronger this time. Their souls are being modified rather strongly. I suspect that until now, the program doing this has not been able to directly interface with their souls but when it connected, significant changes were made to them." Yui frowns, feeling sad that Karen and Katsuo are changing so much so suddenly through outside manipulation.

"Actually, I don't understand something. Why is it that Karen and Katsuo were affected but I wasn't? And what about you Hikaru? We can both recall Aincrad." Haruka asks no one in particular, wondering why those two were affected and not herself or Hikaru.

"I'm not really sure. But we'll find a way to deal with this gradually." Hikaru says with a small smile, trying to reassure Haruka.

"Guys, I hate to rain on your parade, but...well, I don't know about you Hikaru, but if you guys don't return to reality by the time this month ends...you won't make it." Kazuto says with a heavy despondent frown, making Haruka, Hikaru, and even Yui gasp very strongly.

"W-W-WHAT?!" Haruka shouts with a great deal of anger, confusion, and fear in her voice from hearing Kazuto say 'you won't make it'.

"Haruka, try to calm down when I say this." Kazuto rapidly replies, with Hikaru quickly trying to calm down the girl.

"Sorry Kazuto. You just freaked me out. Mind elaborating?" Haruka deeply inhales and exhales, trying to calm herself down.

"Andrew told me that you guys and everyone else still comatose will...die if you aren't freed in a month. Your vitals are beginning to drop and the machines keeping you all alive are beginning to fail. Hence, why you all only have one more month. I'm not sure about you Hikaru."

"Mmmm...one thing worrying me is how Karen and Katsuo are being altered so badly. I've only found Keiko and Morita before now but I hope they're doing better in this regard." Haruka mumbles quietly, trying her best to ignore what Kazuto had just said.

"Come on, let's focus on this later." Hikaru urges, wanting to regroup with the others.

* * *

Alfheim Standard Time: [10:30] August 2nd, 2025

Haruka's group have arrived in Lugru and divided into three different groups: Hikaru and Kazuto went to keep an eye on Karen because of how she's not acting like herself, Katsuo went off on his own somewhere in town, leaving Haruka by herself as she walks to a small park, sits down on a bench and sighs deeply

"This is just horrible. After everything I've heard since I've met up with them, I just…" Haruka groans and cries a little as she stares at the ground, with a Cait Sith male with brown hair, green eyes, and a bow on his back, walking up to her.

"You okay miss?" The man's rather halcyon voice is rather familiar when Haruka looks up from the ground.

"I-I'm okay. Thanks for-" Haruka stares at the man for a short time "M-Mamoru!" Haruka exclaims and hugs her guardian.

"H-Haruka?!" Mamoru lets out the same amount of surprise seeing his foster daughter for the first time since Aincrad. "Are you alright? I heard you crying quite a bit." Mamoru asks, hugging Haruka back.

"Kinda. I'm just...I'm trying to figure out a lot of things right now." Haruka mumbles, crying into Mamoru's shoulders a tiny bit out of relief to see a very familiar face, the only face Haruka knows in real life.

"Well, I'll help you out as much as I can Haruka. We were raised as brother and sister after all. Just tell me what's been happening."

"Putting it simply, I actually found Karen, Katsuo, and Hikaru yesterday and...XANA showed up as well."

"XANA?! That damn AI is back?"

"Yeah. And from what I've seen, XANA's a lot smarter this time."

"You sure Haruka?"

"I'm sure." Haruka solemnly nods, knowing how XANA's being a lot more strategic this time.

"Crap. It's troublesome enough having a fierce, near unstoppable enemy being clueless. But if such an enemy becomes intelligent, dear god." Mamoru's face becomes remarkably pale, knowing how dangerous enemies can become if given intelligence.

"Yeah. XANA's monsters retreated when we had the upper hand and they're currently overwhelming the Salamanders and keeping them separated." Haruka says, while telling Mamoru about what happened.

"Holy crap, they've got the _Salamanders_ overwhelmed? They have one of the strongest armies in this entire game world!" Mamoru is left utterly perturbed, learning that XANA's monsters has one of the strongest armies in Alfheim scattered.

"I'm aware. Anyway, I just hope Keiko and Morita are okay. I was working with them for a while before we parted ways."

"You were able to find people from Aincrad before Karen's group? I'm impressed. I haven't been able to find anyone at all. I did get lucky enough to be made a member of Lady Alicia's royal guard though."

"I see, anyway, why are you here Mamoru?"

"Oh yeah, Yamakage called me here alongside a few other people. He has some sort of mission for us all."

Haruka gasps as she remembers that Katsuo brought the group to help him and what's left of his brigade return to Salamander territory "Oh snap! I can't believe I forgot that! We need to hurry!" Haruka runs to the town square where Katsuo and the others should be waiting.

* * *

Alfheim Standard Time: [11:00] August 2nd, 2025

Haruka and Mamoru go to the town square and see Hikaru, Karen, Kazuto, Katsuo, and Leafa there, with a small group of people in front of them. The new people, to Haruka, are Izanagi, Yugana, Okamoto, and a girl from the Puca race with gold hair and eyes.

"Yamakage, why did you call for us? You know I'm extremely busy." The Puca girl asks angrily, apparently knowing the Major well.

"Minatoya, you know why I called for you all, but this time, I must ask for your help prematurely."

"I know you mentioned asking for our help with a mission later on, but why ask for our help early Yamakage?" Yugana asks calmly, wanting to know why Yamakage is asking for their help prematurely, before the big Salamander Op.

"Speaking of which Yamakage, I'm not fond of that. You're trying to get me to commit treason against my own race for this!" Mamoru snarls angrily toward Katsuo.

"Wait, what?" Hikaru rapidly asks, wondering what that was about.

"Yamakage, we're by ourselves so just tell them of it." Izanagi says with a small sigh, noticing the new people showing up "Despite this particular Op, I'm glad you've been willing to help me so much Pulse." Izanagi replies with Mamoru giving a small nod toward him.

"Fine." Katsuo clicks his teeth angrily before looking toward Karen, Hikaru, and Haruka "The Cait Sith and Sylph leaders are having a secret meeting tomorrow to discuss an alliance. The Salamanders are going to attack that meeting and defeat the two leaders: Sakuya and Alicia so we can tax their cities and take a third of both of their treasuries. Once we do this, we'll procure ancient-class equipment for our entire army and make an attempt up Yggdrasil with Undine healers provided by Lord Izanagi supporting us with high level healing magic."

"I don't approve of this one bit! The fact you all want to work with this Salamander sickens me! I'm leaving." Leafa shouts angrily before running off.

"W-Wait! Leafa!" Kazuto shouts out, trying to get Leafa to come back, to no avail. He then chases after her to try explaining the situation.

"Nice going, now the Sylph and Cait Sith will know about our attack. They'll change the meeting ground and we won't be able to attack them to get the money to fund our Yggdrasil raid." Katsuo growls angrily to Izanagi, since Izanagi's persistence ruined the entire Op. "Anyway, I called you all here to ask for your assistance on returning to Salamander territory."

"Return to Salamander territory? I uh...mind elaborating on that?" Yugana asks, feeling very confused on this.

"New monsters of unknown design have been swarming over this entire area. My brigade got wiped out from these things save Elwing and Kimori. Hence, why I need your aid." Katsuo's reply receives stares of utter awe from Mamoru, Minatoya, Izanagi, Yugana, and Okamoto.

"Y-You lost your entire brigade to monsters?! You trained them over half of them yourself!"

"You don't think I know that Izanagi! I have no idea how these things were able to overwhelm me."

"I know how it was possible. XANA is behind it all." Hikaru interjects, knowing many things about that AI.

"XANA? What in the world is XANA?" Yugana is left clueless, having no idea what Hikaru was talking about, but Minatoya loudly gasps at the term.

"Uh...Minatoya, you okay?" Izanagi worriedly asks, hearing her gasp.

"Urk...dammit, I...Ulkaios, how do you know about XANA?" Minatoya demands angrily, facing him.

"I was an Aincrad player. That's how." Hikaru retorts, keeping his calm disposition about the matter in face to Minatoya's anger.

"You too huh? My name there was Elena." Minatoya quietly mumbles, before revealing herself as Sylvia.

"Heh, I know you all too well: Gold Valkyria of Senryaku. I worked alongside you as a member with the nickname: Jinsoku." Hikaru grins, as he remembers the nickname many players gave him because of his fast speed and swift battle style, with the nickname literally meaning swift.

"Hahaha." Minatoya begins laughing rather strongly, differing quite a bit from the anger mere moments ago.

"Minatoya, this is the first time I've heard you laugh." Yugana smiles when she hears Minatoya laugh.

"I suppose so. I've just known some of these guys for years." Sylvia laughingly says, taking second glances at the people in the area "I'm surprised I didn't recognize you Pulse, honestly, I should be ashamed of myself since you have the same name, then again, I am new to the group Yamakage set up. Mikuya, good to see you as well. Solaris, you're one person I'm extremely glad to see again."

"Okay, can we put this cheery reintroduction aside. We have a mission to do." Katsuo scowls, wanting to get this done quickly. He then puts a hand on his ear "Elwing, give me an update on the situation."

"_**Everything's proceeding as normal. We're just-**_" Elwing tries to say before the sound of lasers being fired are heard by Katsuo.

"Elwing! What's going on over there?! Respond!"

"What's wrong Yamakage?" Izanagi worriedly asks, as Katsuo just shouted after hearing something from his second-in-command.

"_**Major! Those monsters from before are swarming the site! We need to fall back!**_"

"Get out of there Elwing. I need as many people as possible for this."

"_**Understood! Kimori, we need to get out of here!**_"

Katsuo clicks his teeth angrily before looking back to the others "Enough chit-chat. Let's get moving people!"

"Let's go." Hikaru solemnly states, leading the group alongside Katsuo.

* * *

Alfheim Standard Time: [12:30] August 2nd, 2025

Hikaru and his group met up with Kazuto, saying that Leafa is gone and that he was going to chase after her and later contact Rika about how he was able to find some of the Aincrad players and inquire about her progress in the search for other Aincrad players. When they exit the Lugru corridor, they find Elwing and Kimori flying away from XANA's Hornets and Mantas rather frantically, in addition to Evil Glancers which are regular monsters in Alfheim.

"Crap crap crap! It's bad enough these new monsters are dogging us but now we have Glancers after us?!" Kimori exclaims very nervously, evading as many attacks as possible with Elwing doing the same.

"And we're running out of time for our flight! Damn it...Kimori! we need to land on that island and fight this out!" Elwing orders angrily, knowing that staying in one place is incredibly risky as it lowers the number of places to go, but if they run out of time for their flight ability, they'll crash to the ground and they won't be able to retaliate and will be sitting ducks to their attacks.

The pair land on the island, crash landing as their time limit for flight expired "Damn it." Elwing scowls, with her back feeling sore from the overuse of her flight ability.

Right when one of the Hornets would've fired at Elwing, it is swiftly destroyed by Hikaru, who arrives with the rest of the group "Target the ringed eyes on those new monsters!"

Katsuo, Karen, Izanagi, Okamoto, and Yugana fly to where Elwing and Kimori are, giving them some cover from the monsters while Sylvia, Hikaru, Haruka, and Mamoru stay airborne to fight

"You okay Elwing?" Yugana worriedly asks, drawing a spear to help fight against the incoming monsters if they get close.

"Considering the situation Yugana, well enough." Elwing grunts in mild pain at the sensation her back is going through.

"Nii-chan." Yugana quietly states, noticing that there's deep red marks on Elwing's back, not covered by the armor she's wearing.

"You pushed it again Elwing. Let me heal those injuries. Þ ú fylla heill austr." Izanagi lightly chides the young Salamander girl for pushing herself and, injuring herself. When he casts the spell, Izanagi is enveloped by rings as he speaks the incantation. When he finishes, Elwing is enveloped with a thin blue veil and the red marks begin to vanish.

"Thank you Lord Izanagi." Elwing quietly thanks the Undine leader for his healing.

"Just take it easy Elwing, Kimori, you two need rest. Let Ulkaios and the others fight." Izanagi says, staring at the dogfight between XANA's monsters, the Glancers, and Hikaru's group.

* * *

Hikaru and Sylvia acrobatically fly through the sky as they fight XANA's and Cardinal's monsters with remarkable cohesion in their movements and battle strikes with Mamoru backing them up with acrobatic aerial archery, whom is being protected by Haruka as Mamoru is getting attention from the monsters in addition to the massacre being done by Hikaru and Sylvia.

"It felt like ages since we last worked together Hikaru." Sylvia grins happily, using a massive claymore in battle against these monsters.

"Tell me about it! While I haven't exactly been here long, having your immense strength is a godsend." Hikaru returns the grin that Sylvia gave, while destroying two Hornets.

"Ya know Hikaru, any other girl would want to kick your ass for that kind of remark, but I'll let it slide since we're friends and it is true as well." Sylvia retorts with fake anger, though she grins at the praise nonetheless.

"Haha, duly noted." Hikaru laughs at Sylvia's retort.

However, despite the bravado put up by Hikaru and Sylvia; XANA's monsters are spawning in massive numbers and the existing monsters are falling back to heal, taking a shift system which is keeping the four players off-guard and incapable of fighting back efficiently.

"Damn it! How are these monsters so intelligent now?! They were never this adaptable in Aincrad!" Sylvia shouts as she tries to destroy a Manta but it flees the strike and three take up battle against her while the lone monster is healing.

"There just has to be-" Hikaru growls, trying to fight before noticing a different colored Manta on the edge of the battlefield "Look! That manta looks different from the others. Maybe it's the leader! Sylvia, back me up!" Hikaru exclaims, noticing a black colored Manta, differing from the common blue, and Hikaru charges toward it with Sylvia giving him cover from the others.

Hikaru tries to get close to the black manta but is being stopped by the other monsters, clearly showing that particular manta as the leader, but he manages to destroy the black manta but to his horror, it's an illusion.

"N-NO! I-It was a trap?!" Hikaru exclaims in his mind very fearfully, inspecting the battlefield.

* * *

Hikaru quickly finds himself divided from Sylvia and surrounded by monsters so strongly that there was no denying that it was a trap to separate the group. "Damn! This was a trap. XANA definitely has gotten smarter here!" He notices that Sylvia, Haruka, and Mamoru have been separated just like he is, and are getting overwhelmed "Damn it...how did I not notice this?" Hikaru attempts to fight back to no avail until a mystery person is seen flying toward the group.

"I'm coming everyone!" Hikaru quickly glances at the new person while trying to defend himself and notices that it's a young Cait Sith girl with a small blue dragon following her in flight.

"_Wait...that voice and dragon...Keiko!_"

Keiko suddenly arrives using speed that seems to be equal to, or even faster than, Hikaru's own agility and swiftly stabs three of the Mantas and the leader in their ringed eyes, causing them to explode and XANA's monsters retreat once the black Manta was defeated, with the Evil Glancers being quickly defeated once XANA's influence is gone. Now that the area has been made clear; Hikaru, Sylvia, Haruka, Mamoru, and Keiko group up

"I'm glad to see you all again." Keiko replies with a big grin as she hugs the group.

"Likewise Keiko. But how did you know we were here?" Hikaru is curious on how Keiko was able to find them so quickly, especially from how they were in danger.

"I passed by Kazuto-san and he told me you guys were nearby so I came running."

"I'm thankful, but where is Kazuto?" Sylvia asks, wondering where the Spriggan player went, in addition to the Sylph runaway.

"Kazuto-san said he was heading north since the Sylph girl he was trying to find was long gone."

"North...that would mean Cait Sith territory." Sylvia mumbles, wondering why Kazuto would go to Cait Sith territory. "Why would he go to Cait Sith territory?"

* * *

Right after Sylvia began thinking of this, Katsuo flies toward the group, with Izanagi, Yugana, and Okamoto carrying Elwing and Kimori, and Karen rejoins the group after having been sent to the island.

"Okay. Now that the monsters are gone, Minatoya, Pulse, let's move. We're going back to Gadan, right now." Katsuo orders with a somber anger, flying with the others to Salamander territory.

"Sorry Hikaru, everyone, but we do have to go. We are part of Katsuo's auxiliary force so we've gotta help him out. Let's keep in touch." Sylvia frowns sadly over how she's being forced to separate from her friends so soon after reuniting with them.

"Sorry Haruka. As much as I want to tag along, I have to help Katsuo here. As soon as we're dismissed from duty, we'll find a way back to you guys, right Sylvia?" Mamoru says with the same frown, before trying to think of a positive.

"Yeah. As soon as Katsuo relieves us of our assignment, we'll try to find you guys. Best of luck Hikaru, Karen, Haruka, Keiko." Sylvia tries to smile before flying away with Mamoru in tow.

When the pair departs, the four Aincrad players land on the island where Elwing and the others were and decide to plan on where to go next.

"So...where do we go now? Our plan of Lugru ended in both success and failure. We've found Sylvia and Mamoru but they went off with Katsuo to Salamander territory." Hikaru openly asks the group, wondering what their next destination is.

"Keiko, do you have any ideas? I was wondering where you went after we parted ways from each other. Is Morita doing alright?" Haruka asks, as she did work with Keiko and Morita for a time before parting ways.

"Morita went west when we were in Undine territory. He wanted to find Aincrad players and find a place to stay. However, Kazuto-san told me that Rika is in this game helping him and has a house in Takata in Cait Sith territory. We can stay there."

"Rika's free? Thank god for that. I'm glad that someone from Senryaku isn't trapped like us. Let's go find her house and plan our next move there." Hikaru sighs in relief from this update, though he is glad that there is people who know this group well back in reality.

* * *

Alfheim Standard Time: [19:00] August 2nd, 2025

After a great deal of time passed trying to find Rika's property the group find the pink haired Leprechaun and black haired Spriggan outside a rather large castle on the outskirts of the town

"Hey you guys!" Rika happily waves as the group lands near her, with Kazuto smiling as he sees the group.

"It's good to see you again Rika." Keiko happily replies, hugging the second equipment manager of Senryaku.

"Likewise Keiko. I'm glad to see you guys as well. I recognize you by your name: Lieutenant General Haruka Uchimaya of the Aincrad Liberation Force unit: Kincho." Rika says with a rather big grin as she notices Keiko and Haruka, before glancing toward Karen and Hikaru "Hm, I take it you two are Karen and Hikaru of Senryaku? Or rather: Tantei and Jinsoku?" Rika continues with a confident smile toward the Sylph male and Imp female, calling them by nicknames that they held in Aincrad.

The first four members of Senryaku all have nicknames which symbolized their own personal attributes: Karen had the nickname: Tantei for her unique skill: Sleuth; Hikaru had the name Jinsoku for his speed; Katsuo was called White Fortress for his strong defensive power though he was a back-up power vanguard for Sylvia; and Sylvia had the name: Gold Valkyria for her strong combat power. Keiko, Amaterasu, and Rika chose to pass on the nicknames, not wanting to have such things.

"Yep. Good to see you again Rika. I have to say, I love the weapon you made for me: Getsuga." Hikaru smiles when he remembers the katana that Rika forged for him.

"Ha. That was the most difficult weapon I've had to make when it came to you. Do you have any idea how challenging it was to create a katana that fit your rapid attack speed yet make it strong enough to rival Sylvia's and Katsuo's weapons?" Rika retorts with fake anger, remembering the challenge she went through creating Getsuga.

"Although you're complaining, I know you loved the thrill of it, eh Rika?" Hikaru returns the retort with a smug grin, with her merely shrugging in response.

"I suppose. Anyway, I bought this place for you guys to hole up while you try to find a way out." Rika states, opening a menu and presses a few buttons, with Hikaru receiving a notice of the property being given to him. The notice is visible to everyone in the group as well.

"Hey, why'd you give the property to Aio?" Karen interjects with a pouty expression, surprising Keiko and Rika at how she, the seemingly fearless leader of Senryaku, is acting like a spoiled little girl.

"Um...what's wrong with Karen?" Rika asks very curiously, wondering what the heck is wrong with Karen.

Hikaru sighs, not wanting to talk about this much "Yui. You mind explaining? In a short version if possible?"

Yui flies out of Hikaru's coat pocket, surprising Keiko and Rika a tiny bit "I have no idea what's causing it yet but Karen and Katsuo have had their souls modified, with their personalities and memories having changed from their original selves. Haruka, Keiko, I would recommend extreme caution since you are captive here just like the other Aincrad players."

"But...what about Hikaru?" Haruka curiously asks, wanting to know what his place in this soul modification is. "Also, why is it that only Karen and Katsuo were affected? Sylvia, Mamoru, Keiko, and I can remember XANA and Aincrad perfectly."

"I'm still compiling data, but there are too many mysteries here. That AI: XANA may know more about this than I do."

"Yeah, let's ask the AI hellbent on trying to kill us questions. That'll end well." Hikaru sarcastically retorts, doubting that XANA would want to negotiate considering its attitude since it showed up in Aincrad.

"But Hikaru, remember that XANA's acting far differently this time. Instead of pure aggression, he seems more focused on dividing everyone. It's almost as if XANA has some goal he wants fulfilled and doesn't want anyone getting in the way. Perhaps we might be able to reason with it." Haruka states, showing a logical point in XANA's actions since he reappeared.

"Okay look, I need to go for the night, take care of yourselves alright? This place is all yours and there's a special portal installed which allows people to warp from this place to wherever they were before, and vice versa through a simple spell." Rika explains with a grin before logging out for the night.

When Rika is gone, the group of five: Karen, Hikaru, Haruka, Keiko, and Kazuto are left with grins of happiness at how they now have a place to regroup the Aincrad players and find a way to escape this world and get back to reality.


	7. Chapter 5: Save the Sylph and Cait Sith

Hikaru has managed to find Keiko, Sylvia, and Mamoru, though the latter two left to Salamander territory to help Katsuo, leaving himself, Karen, Haruka, and Keiko on their own to strike their own path on what to do.

_Disclaimer: I don't own anything apart from the words that I write and the characters that I create. Credit goes to the original creator of the SAO universe; credits also to the creators and contributors to the Code Lyoko series and related works._

Author Notes: If you want to understand this story fully, I would highly recommend reading my previous work: Reset Code Aincrad. Also, if you haven't noticed by now, I'm making it where each chapter stars a different character. Chapter 1 primarily stars Hikaru Murai and Karen Koizumi; chapter 2 does this with Haruka Uchimaya, and chapter 3 will primarily star Keiko Ayano. That is something I'm making a new feature of Alfheim's remake. I'm making it where different characters get time in the sun in this story. When I publish this chapter, I'll be opening a poll on my account, asking you guys if you want me to do things like this again in future stories or not to.

Also, this chapter is short, but it is a rather important one for later on.

* * *

Alfheim Standard Time: [10:30] August 3rd, 2025

Keiko and the group had a good amount of comfortable rest in the estate that Rika purchased for Senryaku and the Aincrad players when they make it there. They have convened in a rather interesting room which appears to have some sort of viewing platform in the center of the room

"Holy...what is this thing?" Haruka asks no one in particular, walking around the platform like the others.

"It looks similar to what we used in Aincrad a few times. Ya know, the Scrying pedestals?" Hikaru interjects, noticing a similar design of the crystal cover in the center of the platform. He recalls that one was used on floor 56 against the Geocrawler, one of Aincrad's most difficult bosses to slay.

Keiko meanwhile opens a menu that popped up in front of her when she touched the crystal tiling and a large virtual two-dimensional map spawns above the table

"Woah...did not see that coming." Keiko mutters in surprise from how she triggered this.

"This map...This is a map of Alfheim's game world. I recognize it because of those four landmarks in addition to the geological similarities of what I've seen while I've been flying." Haruka responds in a mildly calm manner, recognizing the Lugru corridor and a few landmarks near Undine territory.

Hikaru meanwhile inspects the map and he inadvertently zooms in to Salamander territory in the southeast

"Hikaru? Something up?" Kazuto asks, wanting to know why he zoomed in on the map.

"Total accident, sorry. Anyway, I noticed dots while the map was zooming in." Hikaru apologies before pointing out what he saw on the map and decides to touch it again to see if he could get it to reappear, with his touch activating something close to a scanner, showing bright red dots and orange dots throughout Salamander territory. Each orange dot has a label on the scanner called: Unidentified anomaly, while the reds are simply labeled Salamander.

"Hmm...unidentified anomalies in Salamander territory? You guys thinking the same as me?" Haruka frankly states, staring at the dots. She sees that the red dots, or Salamander players, seem to be moving at a seemingly frantic pace while the orange ones are moving rather methodically.

"Yeah, and look at how entrenched XANA's monsters are. Those formations cannot be anything more than divide and conquer. XANA truly wants the Salamanders divided and unable to make any kind of response against it." Kazuto says with the same frank tone as Haruka as he glances at the battlefield like a strategist in a war would.

"I pray that Sylvia and Mamoru are helping those guys out. They know how to fight those monsters unlike the others." Haruka quietly says, glancing at the map.

"Actually, look at that area there." Hikaru interjects, noticing a small area with multi-colored dots alongside twelve Salamanders.

The group looks where Hikaru specified in the map and notice a group of eighteen heading toward the largest Salamander encirclement.

"Puca, Cait Sith, Undine, Spriggan, Salamander. That must be Katsuo's group." Hikaru mumbles, noticing the labels of the diverse group.

"Wait...are they?" Kazuto asks no one in particular, noticing that the group dashing through enemy lines "Those guys are crazy. Look. They're charging through XANA's lines. But why?"

"It's pretty obvious Kazuto. Look there." Haruka grins, seeing that he's chasing toward a rather large group of Salamanders. "See, they're trying to rescue those Salamanders and bring them into the fold. Doing so would strengthen their position. Mamoru, Sylvia, and Katsuo know how to fight XANA and they'll have an even bigger army backing them up. It's a win-win." Haruka explains, speaking like a true strategist since she learned a great deal from the many meetings of the leader's council.

* * *

At this moment, Leafa suddenly barges in with heavy pants and face red with exhaustion

"Kirito-kun...minna...I...I need your help!" Leafa weakly states, doing her best to shout this.

"Woah, Leafa-san, are you okay?!" Keiko exclaims, rushing toward the Sylph girl.

"I...I need your help!" Leafa repeats herself weakly "I...I kept quiet about the Salamanders but Lady Sakuya's and Lady Alicia's honor guard have been attacked!"

"By who?!" Kazuto asks the Sylph girl seriously.

"Giant...giant bug like monsters." This response shocks the group, who quickly look at the map to see if what Leafa said is true.

When they zoom out of Salamander territory and pan the map over Sylph and Cait Sith territory, they find a large group of XANA's monsters swarming over an area with a small group of Sylphs and Cait Sith being scattered all over.

"So XANA has decided to branch out? Such cunning audacity. Not only does it have the Salamanders on the run, but now he's targeting the Sylph and Cait Sith?" Hikaru mumbles, reluctantly praising the AI for its surprising intellect and strategy for targeting the strongest race in terms of physical strength, the fastest race, and the race capable of beast taming.

"Ulkaios-san, Mikuya-chan, we need to go help them." Keiko seriously says, wanting to save the Sylpha and Cait Sith leaders.

"Right. Kirito, you mind staying here with Ash? I'm not sure she's exactly fit for battle." Hikaru asks Kazuto with a solemn expression, pulling out his katana.

"You sure Ulkaios?"

"Yeah. We need speed here. Besides, we need someone staying here to keep an eye on Ash and the map. Keep us informed on any changes and direct us where to go."

"Got it. I'll keep an eye on things here. Be careful." Kazuto gives a small thumbs up before walking toward the map to keep an eye on the situation.

"Leafa-san, bring us to where they are." Keiko asks the Sylph girl somberly, with her complying and brings Hikaru, Haruka, and Keiko to where the leaders' and their guards are.

* * *

Alfheim Standard Time: [11:15] August 3rd, 2025

The group of four rapidly leave the house and arrive at the airspace where Sakuya and Alicia are rather fast, to find the area swarming with Hornets and Mantas and it's obvious that the situation is remarkably grim. It looks like no one has died yet to the relief of the four players coming to their aid.

"Leafa-san, go get the leaders out of here. We'll hold off the monsters." Keiko says with a grim frown, as she wants to protect the two leaders. "Ulkaios-san, Mikuya-chan, let's go!" Keiko continues, drawing her dagger and charges into battle with her colleagues backing her up.

The group goes off to three different areas of this airspace, wanting to attract as much attention as possible to allow Sakuya and Alicia to escape. The three are also receiving audio comms from Kazuto working as a strategist, though it was never something he was explicitly good with in the first place.

"_**Keiko, you've got a monster charging from the rear, intercept with a spiral slash.**_"

Keiko quickly does as directed and surprisingly slashed against a Hornet that was trying to attack her in melee combat with its proboscis.

"Thank you Kazuto-san!" Keiko says with a thankful grin, having no idea if he can hear her.

The battle continues for quite a while and is devolving badly since Keiko, Hikaru, and Haruka are getting overwhelmed before Leafa returns from evacuating the faction leaders and their guards

"Ulkaios-san, Silica-san, Mikuya-san, Lady Sakuya and Lady Alicia have escaped!" Leafa shouts, rushing toward Keiko and the others, having grouped up when they saw the last of the Cait Siths escaping.

"Right, Ulkaios-san, Mikuya-chan, let's get out of here!" Keiko exclaims seriously, flying away with Leafa and the others in tow, knowing that the battle was never meant to be won, it was nothing but a diversion until the Sylph and Cait Sith leaders got away.

* * *

Alfheim Standard Time: [12:00] August 3rd, 2025

Sakuya, Alicia, and the others have escaped the area where XANA had struck and have made it to a Cait Sith stronghold near the ocean, with the group having been escorted by guards ever since they made it in the vicinity of the area.

"We owe you our lives. Thank you very much, all of you." Sakuya politely bows toward Keiko, Hikaru, and Haruka in appreciation for them saving their lives.

"It's nothing Lady Sakuya. Leafa-san asked for our help and we couldn't refuse when we heard what you were going through." Keiko explains with a sheepish laugh at the praise from the two leaders.

"You three are still good eggs. You saved us from becoming deep fried chicken." Alicia laughs as she made her joke, though she is serious about how Keiko and the others saved her and Sakuya.

"Hehe, you certainly are...interesting Lady Alicia." Hikaru tries to share the sentiment that Alicia gave the group.

"Anyway, what were those things?" Sakuya asks, getting her serious face on.

"They're creations of a rogue AI program Lady Sakuya. Ulkaios, Silica, and I have experience fighting such things. In fact, we're trying to find our other friends. They also know how to fight them off and we need to gather them together to fight them all back." Haruka explains rather eloquently to the Cait Sith leader, gently hiding the affiliation of Sword Art Online for the time being.

"Oh boy. I'm just glad you came to help us, those things were driving up us the wall. How do you kill them anyway?" Alicia asks, with her playful personality still overshadowing the serious question.

"Each monster that belongs to that rogue AI has a ringed eye somewhere on it's physical body. The only way to destroy the monster is hit that specific spot." Hikaru says to the two faction leaders, as he doesn't want people involved in this crisis not knowing this important detail.

"Thanks for that Ulkaios. Hm...I don't recall seeing you before." Sakuya says with a smile, before looking over the young Sylph.

"He's a new player Lady Sakuya. In fact, he just started playing about two days ago." Leafa explains to the Sylph leader in a friendly manner.

"Really? He's a new player yet he's that powerful?" Sakuya asks playfully, wondering if Leafa's telling the truth about him. "Anyway, Alicia and I owe you our lives for saving us."

"Well, I don't want to say too much, but I had a nickname in the last MMO I played: Jinsoku. I was a swift, powerful warrior alongside some of my friends." Hikaru says, both hiding and revealing details of his time in Sword Art Online "Also, you don't owe us, it was only right that we help you, right Mikuya, Silica?" Hikaru continues, trying to keep a degree of modesty as he exchanges glances between the two girls, with them both nodding in agreement.

"You sure? We owe you our lives so we want to help in any way we can." Sakuya asks, wanting to be sure of this decision of Hikaru's.

"Well, we're trying to find friends of ours in this world. We don't know what races they all are in, but we know they're here somewhere."

"Do you have anything that could help in the search? Perhaps some place to gather these friends of yours?" Alicia asks, as she wants to help these three as appreciation for them saving her and Sakuya's life.

"Actually yeah. We recently bought a house in a neutral village in this territory. We named it after a city in the last MMO we played. Is there any way to post messages across the entire game world?"

"Yeah, there is such a method, but is there a message you want sent?" Sakuya curiously crosses her arms, wondering if there is a message that Hikaru will want to send among the game world.

"Two. The first involves those monsters that attacked you. Let the world know that the only way to destroy them is by attacking the ringed eyes. They are otherwise invincible."

"Alright. I know I wanted to pass that info along. Those monsters were horrifying and I don't want anyone to have to face them without knowing how to fight them. What's the second thing Ulkaios?"

"Well Lady Sakuya, there is a message that our friends would recognize when they see it. The message is: Jinsoku is calling for his allies to meet in the house named after the city of guilds. This city of guilds is located in Cait Sith neutral territory. Those who know the people: Jinsoku, Tantei, Gold Valkyrie, and White Fortress are invited to come to this meeting ground."

"Sure, I'll pass it along."

"Actually Lady Sakuya, Lady Alicia, why were you having this meeting?" Haruka asks, wondering why this was happening in the first place.

"We were planning on forming an alliance to clear Yggdrasil. But I imagine now, we'll be using the alliance to protect ourselves." Alicia chirps, revealing the original intention of the alliance before saying that it'll be shifted to defense.

"Lady Alicia, I can't go into details right now, but we need your army for Yggdrasil." Haruka seriously asks, knowing that Yggdrasil is extremely dangerous and would require an army to pull it off.

"Why? Why do you want to clear Yggdrasil?" Alicia is curious on why Keiko's group wants to go up Yggdrasil.

"One of our friends is there. We want to save her." Hikaru replies, having heard from Kazuto that Asuna was trapped in the World Tree.

"Oh, I see. Yeah, that certainly is worrying, isn't it?" Sakuya chimes in with a sad hum, glancing at the Cait Sith leader.

"Tehehe, you certainly are soft on your own Sylph players Sakuya." Alicia giggles like a cat as she speaks, noticing that Sakuya seems inclined to help Hikaru and his friends.

"Well he has a member of your Cait Sith with him. I find that compulsion enough to aid him."

"Mm, true. Alright, we can't provide much, but we'll send as many troops as possible to help you with Yggdrasil. It'll just take time to outfit our army." Alicia replies as frankly as she can to the group.

"Is there any way I can offer my assistance to you Lady Sakuya?" Hikaru eloquently inquires, wanting to get the assistance of the two leaders for the grand quest.

"Oh no, we can not ask for any assistance from you. You've saved our lives and we owe you immensely already. It'd be rude if we ask for any more help."

"Trust me when I say, we'd be helping each other here. From what I've heard, the grand quest is incredibly difficult and you'll need help doing so. I need to get up that tree soon and I need your help to do so. Tell me what you need to do that quest."

The two leaders exchange glances and they both let out a mild groan before looking toward Hikaru "We'd both need two hundred thousand Yuld for our armies. It'll take time to assemble such an amount of money to buy ancient-class equipment and it'd be costly to do, it'd probably crash both of our economies."

"I see." Hikaru mutters, opening his menu to the minor confusion of the faction leaders and pulls out a large bag with 600,000 Yuld. "Here, use this money to get what you need."

Sakuya and Alicia take the bag from Hikaru and gasp loudly when they see the contents "H-How much Yuld is in this bag?!" Alicia exclaims, utterly shocked about this.

"Six hundred thousand. If you can, acquire the equipment you need quickly and aid us."

"But I said we only needed four hundred thousand. Why did you give us this extra?"

"Split a hundred thousand each in reserve for your nations. Use it to revive your economies when all this is done." Hikaru quickly replies to Sakuya.

"W-Woah. Ulkaios, your generosity is astounding. When all this is done, I'd like to induct you as a member of my royal guard."

"Hehe, I'm afraid I must decline the offer. I'm not too fond of leadership to be honest."

"You must have misunderstood. You would not be forced to lead if you do not desire to. Your main job would be protecting me and being the last line of defense if the Sylph nation were attacked."

"Oh, I see. Would you give me some time to ponder this?"

"Of course. Now, I must be going. Leafa, would you please accompany me back to Sylvain?"

"Of course Lady Sakuya." Leafa quickly salutes in response as she spawns her wings.

"Silica, Mikuya, would you guys mind going with them? Make sure they'll be safe from those monsters, alright?" Hikaru asks the girls calmly, not wanting Leafa and Sakuya to be on their own with XANA's monsters active in this area.

"But what about you Ulkaios-san?" Keiko worriedly asks, not wanting Hikaru to be alone just as much as she doesn't want Sakuya and Alicia to be on their own, and Haruka shares the same sentiment in her expression.

"I'll be fine. The estate is not far from here so I won't have to go too far and I'll be in less danger. Lady Sakuya and Leafa are heading all the way back to Sylvain, it's quite a ways away. Just focus on protecting them alright?" Hikaru tries to reassure the girls about what priorities are higher placed here.

"Will do. We'll see you back at the estate Ulkaios." Haruka gives a friendly salute to Hikaru, despite her uneasiness about this, as she and Keiko fly away from the area with Leafa and Sakuya.


End file.
